■^4 



TMK 



DOOM 



OK 



MAMELONS. 



A LEGEND OF THE SAGUENAY. 



BY 



W^H^'h: MURRAY, 



^'?}Wl'^ 



PHILADELPHIA : 

HUBBARD BROTHERS, Publishers. 
1888. 






Copyright by W. H. H. Murray, 

(All rights reserved.) 



-7- /yr?^3 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 

I have for some years felt that the connection of the 
old races with the North American Continent, the signs 
and proofs of whose presence are to be found almost 
everj^where, and nowhere so frequently as on the St. 
lyawrence, afforded material for entertaining authorship. 
Prompted by this feeling, I have, during these several 
years past, been working at certain pieces of compo- 
sition, of which this bit of romance is a fair sample. 

If it shall so far please the reading public that its 
publisher shall not lose money by his venture — for let- 
ters in our time have no patronage save from the hope 
of selfish gain — I shall, later on, print others like to it. 
But if it fail, as it quite likely will, to bring him com- 
mercial profit, then they will be forgotten as this one 
will, until I better them, or they come to a better time. 

W. H. H. MURRAY. 

BuRXiNGTON, Vt., January 7, 1888. 



MAMELONS; 



A Legend of the Saguenay. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE TRAIL. 

IT was a long and lonely trail, the southern 
end of which John Norton struck in an- 
swer to the summons which a tired run- 
ner brought him from the north. The man 
had made brave running, for when he reached 
the trapper's cabin and had placed the birch- 
bark packet in his hands, he staggered to a 
pile of skins and dropped heavily on them, 
like a hound which, from a three days' chase, 

^ Mamelons. The Indians' name for the mouth of the 
Saguena}^ and signifies the Place of the Great Mounds, 
See note 12. 



4 Mamelons, 

trails weakly to the hunter's door, spent nigh 
to death. So came the runner, running from 
the north, and so, spent with his mighty race, 
dropped as one dead upon the pile of skins. 

He bore the death call of a friend, whose 
friendship had been tested on many an am- 
bushed trail and the sharp edge of dubious 
battle. The call was writ on bark of birch, 
thin as the thinnest silk the ancients wove 
from gossamer in the old days when weaving 
was an art and mystery, and not a sordid 
trade to earn a pittance with, traced in delicate 
letters by a hand the trapper would have died 
for. A good ^M^ hundred miles that trail ran 
northward before it ended at the couch of 
skins, in the great room of the great house, 
in which the chief lay dying. And when the 
trapper struck it he struck it as an eagle 
strikes homeward toward the cradle crag of 
his younglings, when talons are heavy and 
daylight scant. He drew his line by the star 
that never sets, and little turning did he make 
for rivers, rapids, or tangled swamp ; for moun- 
tain slope or briery windfall. He drew a trail 



The Trail. 5 

no man had ever trod — a blazeless" trail, 
unmarked by stroke of axe or cut of knife, 
by broken twig or sharpened rod, struck 
into mold or moss, and by its angle^ telling 
whence came the trailer, whither went he, and 
how fast. From earliest dawn till night thick- 
ened the woods and massed the trees into a 
solid blackness, he hurried on, straight as a 
pigeon flies when homing, studying no sign 
for guidance, leaving none to tell that he had 
come and gone. He was at middle prime of 
life, tough and pliant as an ashen bough 
grown on hill, seasoned in hall, sweated and 
strung by constant exercise for highest action, 

^ In order to mark the direction of his course in trailing 
through the woods the trailer slashes with his axe or knife 
the bark of the trees he passes, by which signs he is able 
to retrace his course safely, or follow the same trail easily 
some future time. A blazed trail is one thus plainly 
marked. A blazeless trail is one on which the trailer has 
no marks or ' ' blazes' ' to run by, but draws his line by other 
and occult signs, which tell him in what direction he is 
going and which are known only by those initiated in 
the mysteries of woodcraft. 

^ Certain tribes of Indians north of the St. Lawrence left 
accurate record of their rate of progress, and how far they 
had come by the length and angle of the slanted sticks 
the}^ drove here and there into the ground as they sped on. 
The Nasquapees were best known as practicing this habit. 



6 Mamelons. 

and now each muscle and sinew of his superb 
and superbly conditioned frame was taut with 
tension of a strong desire — to reach the bedr 
side of the dying chief before he died. For 
the message read: " Come to me quick, for I 
am alone with the terror of death. The chief 
is dying. At the pillar of white rock, on the 
lake, a canoe, with oars and paddle, will be 
waiting." 

The trapper was clad in buckskin from cap 
to moccasins. His tunic, belted tight and 
fringeless, was opened widely at the throat for 
freest breathing. A pack, small, but rounded 
with strained fullness, was at his back. His 
horn and pouch were knotted to his side. In 
tightened belt was knife, and, trailing muzzle 
down and held reversed, a double rifle. 
Stripped was the man for speed, as when 
balanced on the issue of the race hang life 
and death. As some great ship, caught by 
some sudden gale off Anticosti or Dead Man's 
reef, and bare of sail, stripped to her spars, 
past battures hollow and hoarse-voiced as 
death and ghastly white, and through the 



The Trail. 7 

damned eddies that would suck her down and 
crush her with stones which grind forever and 
never see the light, sharpening their cuttings 
with their horrid grists, runs scudding; so ran 
the strong man northward, urged b}^ a fear 
stronger than that of wreck on the ghost- 
peopled shore of deadly St. Lawrence. A 
hound, huge of size, bred to a hair, ambled 
steadily on at heel. And though he crossed 
man 3^ a hot scent, and more than once his 
hurrying master started a buck warm from 
his nest, and nose was busy with knowledge 
of game afoot, he gave no whimper nor 
swerved aside, but, silent, followed on in the 
swift way his master was so hurriedly making, 
as if he, too, felt the solemn need which urged 
the trail northward. Never before had runner 
faced a longer or a harder trail, or under high 
command or deadly peril pushed it so fiercely 
forward. 

Seven days the trail ran thus, and still the 
man, tireless of foot, hurried on, and the 
hound followed silently at heel. What a 
body was his ! How its powers responded to 



8 Mamelons. 

the soul's summons ! For on tins seventh 
day of highest effort, taxing with heav}^ strain 
each muscle, bone, and joint to the utmost, 
da3^s lengthened from earliest dawn to deepest 
gloaming, the strong man's face was fresh, 
his eye was bright, and he swung steadily 
onward, with long, swinging, easy-motioned 
gait, as if the prolonged and terrible effort he 
was making was but a morning's burst of 
speed for healthy exercise. 

The climate favored him. October, with all 
its glorious colors, was on the woods, and the 
warm body of the air was charged through 
and through with cool atmospheric movements 
from the north. It was an air to race for one's 
life in. Soft to the lungs, but filled to its 
blue edge with ox^^gen and that mystic ele- 
ment men call ozone ; the overflow of God's 
vitality spilled over the azure brim of heaven, 
whose volatile flavor fills the nose of him who 
breathes the air of mountains. Favored thus 
b}^ rare conditions, the best that nature gives 
the trailer, the strong man raced onward 
through the ripe woods like an old-time run- 



The Trail. 9 

ner running for the laurel crown and the ap- 
plause of Greece. 

It was nigh sunset of the seventh da}^, and 
the trapper halted beside a spring, which bub- 
bled coldl}^ up from a cleft rock at the base 
of a cliff. He cast aside his hunting shirt, 
baring his body to the waist, and bathed him- 
self in the cool water. He knelt to its mossy 
rim and sank his head slowly down into the 
refreshing depths, and held it there, that he 
might feel the delicious coolness run thrilling 
through his heated body. He cast his mocca- 
sins aside and bathed his feet, sore and hot 
from monstrous effort, sinking them knee 
deep in the cold ilowage of the blessed spring. 
Then, refreshed, he stood upon the velvet 
bank, his mighty chest and back pink as a 
lady's palm, his strong feet glowing, his face 
aflush through its deep tan, while the wind 
dried him, and the golden leaves of the over- 
hanging maples fell round him in showers. 

Refreshed and strengthened, he reclothed 
himself, relaced his moccasins and tightened 
belt, but before he broke away he drew the 



lo Mamelons. 

sheet of birchbark from his breast aud read the 
lines traced delicately thereon. 

" Yes, I read aright," he muttered to him- 
self; " the writing on the birch is plain as 
ivy on the oak, and it says : ' Come to me 
quick, for I am alone with the terror of death. 
The chief lies dying. At the pillar of white 
rock, on the lake, a canoe, with oars and pad- 
dle, will be waiting.' " And the trapper thrust 
back the writing to its place above his heart 
and burst away down the decline that lead to 
the lake at a run. 

"I've bent the trail like a fool," he mut- 
tered, as he reached the bottom of the dip, 
" or the lake lies hereaway," and even as he 
spoke the waters of a lake, red with the red 
flame of the setting sun, gleamed like a field 
of fire through the maple trees. The trapper 
dashed a hand upward with a gesture of de- 
light, and burst away again at a lope through 
the russet bushes and golden leaves that lay 
like plucked plumage, ankle deep, upon the 
ground, toward the lake, burning redly 
through the trees not fifty rods beyond. A 



The Trail. ir 

moment brought him to the shore, bordered 
thick with cedar growths, and, breaking 
through the fragrant branches with a leap, 
he landed on a beach of silver sand, and lo ! 
to the left, not a dozen rods away, washed by 
the red waves, stood the signal rock, fifty feet 
in height, and from water line to summit 
white as drifted snow. 

'' God be praised !" exclaimed the trapper, 
and he lifted his cap reverently. " God be 
praised that I reckoned the course aright and 
ran the trail straight from end to end. For 
the woods be wide and long, and to have 
missed this lake would have been a sorry hap 
when one like her is alone with the dying. 
But where is the canoe that she said should 
be here, for sixty miles of water cannot be 
jumped like a brook or forded like a rapid, 
and the island lies nigh the western shore, 
and who may reach it afoot ? And he ran his 
eyes along the sand for signs to tell if boat 
or human foot had pressed it. 

He searched the beach a mile around the 
bay, but not a sign of human presence could 



12 Mamelons, 

be found. Then nigh the signal rock he sat 
upon the sand, unloosed his pack, and from it 
took crust and meat, of which he ate, then fed 
the hound, sharing the scant supper with him 
equally. ^' It is the last morsel. Rover," said 
the trapper to the dog as he fed him. " It is 
the last morsel in the pack, and you and I will 
breakfast lightly unless luck comes." The 
dog surely understood the master's saying, for 
he rolled his hungry eyes toward the pack as 
if he bitterly sensed the bitter prophecy; 
then — true canine philosopher as he was — he 
curled himself in a bunch of dried leaves con- 
tentedly, as if by extra sleep he would make 
good the lack of food. 

" Thou art wiser than men !" exclaimed the 
trapper, looking reflectively at his canine com- 
panion, now snoring in his warm russet bed. 
^' Thou art wiser, my dog, than men, for they 
waste breath and time in bewailing their hard 
fortunes, but you make good the loss that 
pinches thee by holding fast and quickly to the 
nearest gain." And he gazed upon the sleep- 
ing hound v/ith reflecting and admiring eyes. 



The Trail. 13 

Then slowl}^ behind the western hills sank 
the red sun. The fervor faded from the water 
and the lake darkened. The winds died with 
the day. Gradually the farther shore retired 
from sight, and the distinguishing hills be- 
came blankly black. The upper air held on 
to the retreating light awhile, but finally sur- 
rendered the last trace, and night held all the 
world. 

Amid the gathering gloom upon the beach 
the trapper sat in counsel with his thoughts. 
At length he rose, and v\dth dry driftage within 
reach kindled a fire. By the light of it he 
cut some branches of nigh cedars, and with 
them made a bed upon the sand, then cast 
himself upon his fragrant couch. Twice he 
rose and listened. Twice renewed the fire 
with larger sticks. At last, tired nature failed 
the will. The toil of the Ions: trail fell 
heavily on him. Slumber captured his senses 
and he slept the sleep of sheer exhaustion. 
But before he slept he muttered to himself: 

'^ She said a canoe, with oars and paddle, 
should be here, and the canoe will come." 



14 Mamelons, 

The hours passed on. The Dipper turned 
its circle in the northern sky, and stars rose 
and set. The warm shores felt the coolness 
of the night, and from the water's edge a soft 
mist flowed and floated in thin layers along 
the cooling sands. The logs of seasoned 
woods glowed with a steady warmth in the 
calm air. The fog turned yellow as it drifted 
over the burning brands, so that a halo 
crowned the ruddy heat. The night was at 
its middle watch, when the hound rose to his 
feet and questioned the lake with lifted nose, 
but his mouth gave no signal. If one was 
coming, it was the coming of a friend. Ten 
minutes passed, then he whined softly, and, 
walking to the water's edge, waited expectant; 
not long, for in a moment a canoe, moving 
silently, as if wind-blown, came floating to- 
ward the beach, and lodged upon it noise- 
lessly, as bird on bough. And a girl, paddle 
in hand, stepped to his side, and, stooping, 
caressed his head, then moved toward the fire 
and stood above the sleeping man. 

She gently stirred the brands until they 



The Trail, 15 

flamed, and in the light thus made studied the 
strong face, bronzed with the tan of the woods, 
the face of one who never failed friend nor 
fought foe in vain, and who had come so far 
and swiftly in answer to her call. She was 
of that old race who lived in the morning of 
the world, when giants walked the earth* and 
the sons of God married the daughters of 
men.^ And the old blood's love of strength 
was in her. She noted the power and sym- 
metry of his mighty frame, which lay relaxed 
from tension in the graceful attitude of sleep; 
the massive chest, broad as two common 
men's, which rose and fell to his deep breath- 
ing ; the great, strongly corded neck, rooted 
to the vast trunk as some huge oak grown on 
a rounded hill. She noted, too, the large and 
shapely head, the thick, black hair, closely 
cropped, and the sleeper's face — where might 
woman find another like it ? — lean of flesh, 

* There were giants in the earth in those days. Gen. 
vi, 4. 

* The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they 
were fair ; and they took them wives of all which they 
chose. Gen. vi, 2. 



1 6 Mamelons, 

large leatured, plain, but stamped with the 
seal of honesty, chiseled clean of snrplns by 
noble abstinence, and bearing on its front the 
look of pride, of power and courage to face 
foe or fate. Thus the girl sat and watched 
him as lie slept, stirring the brands softly that 
she might not lose sight of a face which was 
to her the face of a god — such god as the 
proudest woman of her race, in the old time 
might, with art or goodness, have won and 
wedded. 

Dawn came at last. The blue above turned 
gray. The stars shortened their pointed fires 
and faded. The east kindled and flamed. 
Heat flowed westward like an essential oil 
hidden in the pores and channels of the air ; 
while light, brightly clean and clear, ran 
round the horizons, revealing its own and the 
loveliness of the world. 

Then woke the birds. Morning found a 
voice sweet as her face. A hermit thrush 
sent her soft, pure call from the damp depths 
of the dripping woods. A woodpecker sig- 
naled breakfast with his hammer so sturdily 



The Trail. 17 

that all the elfin echoes of the hills merrily 
mimiced him. An eagle, hunting through the 
sky, at the height of a mile, dropped like a 
plummet into the lake, and, struggling up- 
ward from his perilous plunge, heavily 
weighted, lined his slow flight straight to- 
ward his distant crag. The girl rose to her 
feet, and, leaning on her paddle, for a moment 
gazed long and tenderly at the sleeper's face, 
then softly breathed, "John Norton!'' 

The call, low as it was, broke through the 
leaden gates of slumber with the suddenness 
and effect of a great surprise. Quick as a 
flash he came to his feet, and, for a moment 
stood dazed, bewildered, his bodily powers 
breaking out of sleep quicker than his senses, 
and he saw the girl as visitant in vision. 
He stepped to the water's edge and bathed 
his face, and turning, freshened and fully 
awake, saw with glad and apprehensive 
eyes, who stood before him, and tenderly 
said: 

" Is the da ter of the old race well ?" 
"Well, well I am, John Norton," answered 



l8 Mamelons, 

the girl, and her voice was low and softly 
musical, as water falling into water. " I am 
well, friend of my mother and my friend. 
And the chief still lives, and will live till you 
come, for so he bade me tell you." And she 
reached her small hand out to him. He took 
it in his own, and held it as one holds the 
hand of child, and answered : 

" I am glad. Thou comest like a bird in 
the night, silently. Why did you not awake 
me when you came ?" 

" Why should I wake thee, John Norton ?" 
returned the girl. '^ I am a day ahead of that 
the chief set for your coming. For our run- 
ner — the swiftest in the woods from Mistas- 
sinni to Labrador — said : ' Twelve suns must 
rise and set before my words could reach 
thee,' and the chief declared : ' No living man, 
not even you, could fetch the trail short of 
ten days.' He timed me to this rock himself, 
and told me when I would come nor wait 
another hour, that I would wait by the white 
rock two days before I saw your face. But I 
would come, for a voice within me said — a 



The Trail. 19 

voice whicli runs vocal in our blood, and has 
so run through all my race since the begin- 
ning of the world — this voice within kept say- 
ing: ' Go^ for thou shall find him there P And 
so I, hurr^dng, came. But tell me how many 
days were you upon the trail ?" 

" I fetched the trail in seven days from sun 
to sun," answered the trapper, modestly. 

" Seven days !'' exclaimed the girl, while 
the light of a great surprise and admiration 
shone in her eyes. " Seven days ! Thou 
hast the deer's foot and the cougar's strength, 
John Norton. No wonder that the war chiefs 
love you." 

And then after a moment's pause : 

''But why didst thou push the trail so 
fiercely ?" 

'' I read your summons and I came," replied 
the trapper, sententiously. 

The girl started at the hearing of the words, 
which told her so simply of her power over 
the man in front of her. Her nostrils dilated, 
and through the glorious swarth of her cheek 
there came a flash of deeper red. The gloom 



20 Mame ions'. 

of her eyes moistened like glass to the breath. 
Her ripe lips parted as to the passing of a 
gasp, and the full form lifted as if the spirit 
of passion within would fling the beautiful 
frame it filled upon the strong man's bosom. 
Thus a moment the sweet whirlwind seized 
and shook her, then passed. Her eyes drooped 
modestly, and with a sweet humbleness, as 
one who has received from heaven beyond her 
hope or merit, she simply said : 

'' I have brought you food, John Norton. 
Come and eat." 

The food was of the woods. Bread coarse and 
brown, but sweet with the full cereal sweet- 
ness ; corn, parched in the fire, which eaten, 
lingered long as a rich flavor in the mouth ; 
venison, roasted for a hunter's hunger, within 
whose crisp surface the life of the deer still 
showed redly ; water from the lake, drank 
from a cup shaped from the inner bark of the 
golden birch, whose hollow curvature still 
burned with warm chrome colors. So, on the 
cool lake shore, in the red light of early morn, 
they broke their fast. 



The Trail. 21 

The trapper ate as a strong man eats after 
long toil and scant feeding, not grossly, but 
with a heartiness good to see. The girl ate 
little, and that absently, as if the atoms in 
her mouth were foreign to her senses and no 
taste followed eating. 

'' You do not eat," said the trapper. "The 
sun will darken on the lower hills before we 
come to food again. Are you not hungry ?" 

" Last night I was ahungered," answered 
the girl, musingly. " But now I hunger no 
more," and her face was as the face of a Ma- 
donna, holding her child, full of a plentiful 
and sweet content. 

"I do not understand you," returned the 
trapper, after a moment's silence. " Your 
words be plain, but their sense is hidden. 
Why are you not hungry ?" 

'* You read me once out of your sacred 
books, John Norton, that man does not live 
by bread alone, but by every word that pro- 
ceedeth out of the mouth," responded the girk 
" I knew not then the meaning of the words, 
for I was a girl, and had no understanding, 



22 Mamelons. 

and the words were old, older than your books, 
and therefore deeply wise, and I, being young, 
did not know. But I know now." And here 
the girl paused a moment, hesitated as a young 
bird to leave the sure bough for the first time, 
then, rallying courage for the deed, gazed with 
her large eyes lovingly into his, and timidly 
explained : 

" I am not hungry, John Norton, for God 
has fed me !" 

To the tanned cheek of the trapper there 
rushed a glow like the flush to the face of a 
girl. The light of a happy astonishment 
leaped from his eyes, and his breath came 
strongly. Then light and color faded, and as 
one vexed and heartily ashamed of his vanity, 
while the lines of his face tightened, he made 
harsh answer : 

^' Talk no more in riddles, lest I be a fool 
and read the riddle awry. Nor jest again on 
matters grave as life, lest I, who am but 
mortal man and slow withal, forget wisdom 
and take thy girlish playfulness for earnest 
talk. Nay, nay," he added earnestly, as she 



The Trail. 23 

rose to her feet with an exclamation of pas- 
sionate pain, '' Say not another word, you have 
done no ill. You be young aiid fanciful, and 
I — I be a fool ! Come, let us go. The pull 
is long, and we will need the full day's light 
to reach the island ere night falls." And, 
placing his rifle in the canoe, he signaled to 
the hound and seated himself at the oars. 
The girl obeyed his word, stepped to her place 
and pushed the light boat from the sands on 
which so much had been received and so much 
missed. Perhaps her woman's heart foretold 
her that love like hers would get, even as it 
gave, all at last. 

The house was large and lofty, builded of 
logs squared smoothly and mortared neatly 
between the edges. In the thick walls were 
deep embrasures, that light through the great 
windows might be more abundant. The 
builders loved the sun and made wide path- 
ways for its entrance everj^where. The case- 
ments, fashioned to receive storm shutters, 
were proof against winter's wind and lead 



24 Mamelons. 

alike. In the steep roof were dormer win- 
dows, glassed with panes, tightly soldered to 
the sash. At either end of the great house a 
huge chimney rose, whose solid masonry of 
stone stood boldly out from the hewn logs, 
framed closely against its mortared sides. A 
wide veranda ran the entire length of the 
southern side. A balustrade of cedar logs, 
each hewn until it showed its red and fragrant 
heart, ran completely round it. Above posts 
of the same sweetly odored wood — whose fra- 
grance, with its substance, lasts forever — was 
lattice work of poles stripped of their birchen 
bark and snowy white, on which a huge vine 
ran its brown tracery, enriched with bunches, 
heavily pendent, of blue black grapes — that 
pungent growth of northern woods, whose 
odors make the winding rivers sweet as 
heaven. In front, a natural lawn sloped to 
the yellow sands, on which the waves fell 
with soft sound. 

Eastward, a widely acred field, showed care- 
ful husbandr3^ Garnet and yellow colored 
pods hung gracefully from the brown poles. 



The Trail. 25 

The ripened corn showed golden through the 
parted husks, and beds of red and yellow beets 
patched the dark soil with their high colors. 
The solar flower turned its broad disk toward 
the wheeling sun, while dahlias, marigold, and 
hardy annuals, with their bright colors, warmed 
like a floral campfire the stretch of gray stub- 
ble and pale barren beyond. It was a lovely 
and a lonely spot, graced by a lordly home, 
such as the w^ealthy worthies builded here and 
there in the great wilderness for comfort and 
for safety in the old savage days when feudal 
lords ^ made good their claim to forest seign- 
iories with sword and musket, and every house 
was home and castle. 

The canoe ran lightly shoreward. The beach 
received its pressure as a mother's bosom re- 
ceives the child running from afar to its recep- 
tion — ^deldingly ; and on the welcoming sand 
the light bark rested. The trapper stepped 

^ The reader will recall that old Canada, viz., the Prov- 
ince of Quebec was wholly French in origin, and that its 
organization rested on the feudal basis, the whole territory 
occupied being divided not into towns and counties, but 
into seigniories. 



26 Matnelons. 

ashore and reached his hand back to the girl. 
Her velvet palm touched his, rough and strong, 
as thistledown, wind blown, the oak tree's 
bark, then nestled and stayed. Thus the two 
stood hand in hand, gazing up the sloping 
lawn at the great house, the broad, bright field 
and the circling forest, glowing with autumnal 
colors, which made the glorious background. 
The green lawn, the great gray house, and the 
vast woods belting it around, brightly beauti- 
ful, made such a landscape picture as Titian 
would have reveled in. It stood, this man- 
sion of the woods, this wilderness castle, in 
glorious loneliness, a part and centre of a splen- 
did solitude, beyond the coming and going of 
men, be3^ond their wars and peace, the creation 
and embodiment of a mystery deep as the 
woods around it ; a strange, astounding spec- 
tacle to one who did not know the history of 
the forest. 

'' It is a noble place," exclaimed the trapper, 
as he gazed up the wide lawn at the great 
house, and swept with admiring glance the 
glorious circle of the woods which curved their 



The Trail, 2 J 

belt of splendor round it ; '4t is a noble place, 
and if mortal man might find content on earth, 
he might find it here." 

^' Could you, John Nor::on, living here, be 
content ?" inquired the girl, and she lifted the 
splendor of her eyes to his strong, honest face. 

'^ Content," returned the trapper, innocently, 
" why, what more could mortal crave than is 
here to his hand ? A field to give him bread, 
a noble house to live in, the waters full offish, 
the woods of game, the sugar of the maple for 
his sweetening, honey for his feasts, and not 
a trap within two hundred miles. What more 
could mortal man, of good judgment, crave ?" 

" Is there nothing else, John Norton ?" asked 
the girl. 

'' Aye, aye," returned the trapper, " one 
thing. I did forget the dog. A hunter should 
have his hound." 

A shade of pain, perhaps vexation, came to 
her face as she heard the trapper's answer. 
She withdrew her hand from his and said: 
*^ Food, fur, and a house are not enough, John 
Norton. A dog is good for camp and trail. Sol- 



28 Ma me ions. 

itude is sweet and the absence of wicked men 
a boon. But these do not make home nor 
heaven, both of which we crave and both of 
which are possible o.i earth, for the conditions 
are possible. The chief has found this spot a 
dreary place since mother died." 

" Your mother was an angel," answered the 
trapper, " and your words are those of wisdom. 
I have thought at times of the things you hint 
at, and, as a boy, I had vain dreams, for nature 
is nature. But I have my ideas of woman and 
I love perfect things. And I — I am but a 
.hunter, an unlearned man, without education, 
or house, or land, or gold, and I am not fit for 
any woman that is fit for me !" 

The change that came to the girl's face at 
the trapper's words — for he had spoken gravely, 
and through the honesty of his speech she 
looked and saw the greatness and humility of 
his nature — was one to be to him who saw it 
a memory forever. The shadow left it and its 
dusky splendor was lighted with the glow of 
a blessed assurance. This man would love 
her! This man with the eagle's eye, the 



The Trail, 29 

deer's foot, the cougar's strength, the honest 
heart, would love her ! This man her mother 
reverenced, her uncle loved, who twice had 
saved her life at the risk of his, whose skill 
and courage were the talk of a thousand camps, 
whose simple word in pledge held faster than 
other's oaths — this man into whose very bosom 
her soul had looked as into a clean place — this 
man would love her ! If heaven be what good 
men say, and all its bliss had been pledged to 
her when she lay dying, her body would not 
have thrilled with a warmer glow than rushed 
its sweet heat through her veins at that in- 
stant of blessed conviction. Wait ! She could 
wait for years, but she would win him — win 
him to herself; win him from his blindness, 
which did him honor, to that dazzling light in 
whose glory man stands but once ; but, stand- 
ing so, sees, with a glad bewilderment, that the 
woman he dares not love, because she is so in- 
finitely better than he, loves him ! Yes, she 
would win him — win him with such sweet art, 
such patient approaches, such seductiveness of 
innocent passion, slowly and deliciously dis- 



30 Mamelons. 

closed, that he should never know of his 
temerity until, thus drawn to her, she held 
him in her arms irrevocably, in bonds that only 
cold and hateful death could part. Through 
all her leaping blood this blessed hope, this 
sure, sweet knowledge flowed like spiced wine. 
This man, this man she worshiped, he \vould 
love her ! It was enough. Her cup ran full 
to the brim and overflowed. She simply took 
the trapper's hand again and said : 

''We wall go to the chamber of the chief. 
His eyes will brighten when he sees thy face.^^ 



CHAPTER II. 

THE FIGHT AT MAMELONS.'' 

"XT was a dreadful figHt, John Norton. We 
I went into it a thousand warriors on a 
side, and in either army were twenty 
chiefs of fame. We fought the fight at 
Mamelons, where, at sunset, we met the Es- 
quimaux,"^ coming up as we were going down. 
The Montaignais headed the war. The 
Mountaineers,^ whose fathers' wigwams stood 
at Mamelons, had fought the Esquimaux a 
thousand years, and both had wrongs to right. 
My father died that summer, and I, fresh 

' This old battle-ground is located on the high terraces 
which define the several sand mounds now standing back 
of Tadousac. 

^ The Esquimaux were numerous and very warlike, and 
at one time had pushed their conquests clean up to the 
Saguenay. 

^ The Montagnais Indians held the country, from Quebec 
down to the Esquimaux, near Seven Islands, and called 
themselves "Mountaineers." 

31 



32 Mamelons. 

from the fields of France, headed my tribe. 
You know how small it was, the last remnant 
of the old Lenape root, but every man a war- 
rior. I knew not the right or wrong of it, 
nor did I care. I only knew our tribe was 
pledged to the Nasquapees^^ of frozen Ungava, 
and they were allies of the Mountaineers, and 
hence the fight held us to its edge. That 
night we slept under truce, but when the sun 
came up went at it. I see that morning now. 
The sun from out the eastern sea rose red as 
blood. The Nasquapees, who lived as athe- 

'° The Nasquapees are one of the most remarkable fami- 
lies of Indians on the continent, and of whom but little is 
known. Their country extends from Lake IMistassinni 
eastward to Labrador, and from Ungava Bay to the coast 
mountains of the St. Lawrence. The}- are small in size, 
fme featured, with mild, dark eyes, and extremely vSm all 
hands and feet. The name Nasquapees — Nasqupics — 
means "a people who stand straight." They have no 
INIedicine man or prophet, and hence arc called by other 
tribes atheists. Their sense of smell is so acute that it 
rivals the dog's. "Spirit rappings," and other strange 
manifestations, peculiar to us moderns, have been prac- 
ticed immemorially among them and carried to such a shade 
of success that one of our Boston seances would be a laugh- 
able and bungling affair to them. Their language is like 
the Western Crees, and their traditions point to a remote 
eastern origin. 



The FigJif at Mamelons. 33 

ists without a Aledicine man, cared not for 
this, but the prophet of the Mountaineers 
painted his face and body black as night, tore 
his blanket into shreds, and lay in the sand 
as one dead. The Nasquapees laughed, but 
we of the mountains knew by that dread sign 
that our faces looked toward our last battle. 
We made it a brave doom. We fought till noon 
upon the shifting sands, nor gained an inch, 
nor did our foes, when suddenly the sun was 
clouded and a great wind arose that drove the 
sand so thickly that it hid the battle. The 
firing and the shouting ceased along the ter- 
race where we fought, and a great, dread 
silence fell on the mighty mounds, save when 
the fierce gusts smote them. Thus, living 
and dead, friend and foe, we lay together, our 
faces plunged into the coarse gravel, our 
hands clutching the rounded stones, that we 
might breathe and stay until the wind might 
pass. And such a wind was never blown on 
man before, for it was hot and came straight 
down from heaven, so that our backs winced 
as we la}^ flattened. Thus, mixed and min- 



34 Mamelofis, 

gled, we olung to the hot stones, while some 
crept in. beneath the dead for shelter. So both 
wars ching to the ground for an honr's space. 
Then, suddenl}', the sun rushed out, and shak- 
ing sand from eyes and hair, aud spitting it 
from our mouths, at it we went again. It was 
an awful fight, John Norton, and more than 
once, in the mad midst of it, smoke-blinded 
and sand-choked, I thought of 3'OU and that I 
heard your rifle crack." 

" I would to God I had been there!" ex- 
claimed the trapper, and he dashed his huge 
hand into the air, as if cheering a line of 
battle on, while his eyes blazed and his face 
whitened. 

'' I would to God you had been !" returned 
the chief '' For whether one lived through it, 
or died in it, we made it great by great fight- 
ing. For we fought it to the end in spite of 
interruptions." 

'' Interruptions !" exclaimed the trapper. 
"I do not understand ye, chief. What but 
death could interrupt a fight like that ?" 

'^Listen, trapper listen," rejoined the chief, 



The Fight at Mamelons, 35 

excitedly. ^' Listen, that you may understand 
wHat stopped the fight, for never since man 
was born was fought such fight as we fought, 
high up above the sea, that day at Mamelons. 
I told you it was an old feud between the 
Mountaineers and^squimaux, a feud that had 
held its heat hot for a thousand years, and 
we, a thousand on each side, one for each year, 
fought on the sand, while above, below, and 
around the dead of a thousand years, slain in 
the feud, fought too." 

" Nay, nay," exclaimed the trapper. '' Chief, 
it cannot be. The dead fight not, but live in 
peace forever, praise be to God," and he bowed 
his head reverently. 

^' That is your faith, not mine, John Nor- 
ton, for I hold to an older faith — that men by 
a knife's thrust are not changed, but go, with 
all their passions with them, to the Spirit 
Land, and there build upward on the old 
foundation. And so, I say again, that the 
dead of a thousand years fought in the air 
above and around us on that day at Mame- 
lons. For, in the pauses of the wind, we who 



36 Manielons. 

fought on either side heard shrieks, and shouts, 
and tramplings as of ten thousand feet, and 
over us were roarings, and bellowings, and 
hollow noises, dreadful to hear, and through 
all the battle went the word that ' tJie old dead 
were fighting^ too P and that made us wild. 
Both sides went mad. The dying cheered 
the living, and the living cheered the dead. 
So went the battle — the fathers and the 
sons, the dead and living, hard at it. The 
waters of the Saguenay, a thousand feet 
below, were beaten into foam by the rush of 
fighting feet, and the roaring of a great battle 
filled its mouth. Its dark tide whitened with 
strange death froth from shore to shore, while 
ev^er and anon its surface shivered and shook. 
And under us on the high crest, cloud-wrap- 
ped, the earth trembled as we fought, so that 
more than once as we stood clinched, we two, 
the foe and I, still gripped for death, would 
pause until the ground grew stead}^, for its 
tremblings made us dizzy, then clinch the 
fiercer, mad with a great madness at being 
stopped in such death-grapple. Under us all 



The Fi^kt at Mamelons, 



%i> 



11 



the long afternoon tlie great mounds rose and 
sank like waves tliat have no base to stand 
upon. The clouds snowed ashes. Mud fell 
in showers. The air we breathed stank with 
brimestone and burnt bones. And still it 
thickened, and still both sides, now but a 
scattered few, fought on, until at last, with a 
crash, as if the world had split apart, dark- 
ness, deep as death, fell suddenly, so that eyes 
were vain, and we who were not dead, unable 
to find foe, stood still. And thus the battle 
ended, even drawn, because God stopped the 
fight at Manielons."' 

:i: :^ ^ :j; ^ ^ rj; ^ 

^^ The Sagnenay is undoubtedly of earthquake origin. 
The north shore of the St. Lavvrence from Cape Tourmente 
to Point du Monts, is one of the earthquake centres of the 
world. In 1663 a frightful series of convulsions occurred, 
lasting for more than four months; and, it is said, that not 
a 3'ear passes that motions are not felt in the earth. The 
old maelstrom at Bai St. Paul was caused by subterranean 
force, and b}^ subsequent shocks deprived of its terrible 
power. The mouth of the Saguenay was one of the great 
rendezvous of the Indian races long before Jacques Cartier 
came, and the great mounds above Tadousac have been 
the scene of many great Indian battles ; but I would not 
make affidavit that an earthquake ever did actually take 
place while one was being fought, although there ma}' have 
been, and certainly, from an artistic point of view, there 
should have been, such a poetic conjunction. 



38 Mamelons, 

" At last the morning dawned at Mamelons, 
and never since those ancient beaches^^ saw the 
world's first morning, had the round sun looked 
down on such a scene. The great terraces on 
which we fought were ankle deep with ashes 
mixed with mud, and cinders black and hard, 
like burnt iron, and all the sand was soaked 
with blood. The dead were heaped. They lay 
like drifted wreckage on a beach, where the 
eddying surges of the battle tossed them in 
piles and tangled heaps like j ammed timber. 
For in the darkness, we had fought by sound, 
and not by sight, and where the battle roared 
loudest, thither had we rushed, using axe and 
knife and the short seal spears of the damned 
Esquimaux. And all the later battle was 
fought breast to breast, for ere half were dead, 
powder and lead gave out, and the fray was 

" These mamelons, or great sand mounds, are believed to 
be the old geologic beaches of earliest times. The}* rise in 
tiers, or great terraces, one above the other, to a great height, 
the uppermost one being a thousand feet or more above the 
Saguenay, and represent, as they run down from terrace 
to terrace, the shrinking of the " face of the deep " in the 
creative period, by the shrinking of which the solid earth 
rose in sight. 



The Fight at Mamelons. 39 

hand to hand, until, by the sickening dark- 
ness, God stopped it. 

" I searched the dreadful field from end to 
e'nd to find my own, and found them. With 
blackened hands, clouted with blood, I drew 
them together. Forty in all, I stretched them, 
side by side, and the savage pride of the old 
blood in me burst from my mouth in a shrill 
yell, when I saw that twenty swarthy bosoms 
showed the knife's thrust deep and wide. They 
died .like warriors, trapper, true to the old Len- 
ape blood, whose Tortoise^*^ steadfastness up- 
held the world. I made a mound above their 
bodies, and heaped it high with rounded stones 
which crowned the uppermost beach, and made 

" The Lenni-Lenape had, at the coming of the whites, 
their territory on the Delaware, but their traditions point to 
long journey ings from the east over wide waters and cold 
countries. Their language, strange to say, has in it words 
identical with the old Basque tongue, and establishes some 
community of origin or history in the remote ages. The 
Ivenni-Iyenape had as their Totem, or sacred sign of origin 
and blood, a Tortoise with a globe on its back, and boasted 
that they were the oldest of all races of men, tracing their 
descent through the ages to that day when the world 
was upheld by a Tortoise, or turtle, resting in the midst of 
the waters. As a tribe they were very brave, proud, and 
honorable. 



40 M ante Ions. 

wail above friends and kindred fallen in strange 
feud. And there they sleep, on that high 
verge, where the unwritten knowledge of my 
fathers, told from age to age, declare the waters 
of the earliest morning first found shore." [See 
note 12.] 

'' Never did I hear a tale like this," ex- 
claimed the trapper. " Strange stories of this 
fight I heard in the far north, chanted in dark- 
ness at midnight, with wild wailing of the 
tribes ; but I held it as the trick of sorcerers to 
frighten with. Go on and tell me all. Chief, 
what next befell thee?" 

^^ John Norton, thou hast come half a thou- 
sand miles to hear a tale of death told by a 
dying man. Listen, and remember all I say, 
for at the close it touches close on thee. A 
fate whose meshes woven when our blood was 
crossed has tangled all that bore our name in 
ruin from the start, and with my going only 
one remains to suffer further." 

Here the chief paused while one might 
count a score, then, looking steadily at the 
trapper, said : 



The Fight at Mamelons. 41 

" Last montli, when the raven was on the 
moon/^ my warning came. The old wound 
opened without cause, and, lying on this bed, 
I saw the hour of my death, and beyond, thee, 
I saw, and beside thee the last and sweetest of 
our line, and the same doom was over her as 
has been to us all since the fatal cross — the 
doom w^hich sends courage and beauty to a 
quick, sad death." 

" I do not understand," replied the trapper. 
^' Tell me what befell thee further, step by 
step, and how I, a man w^ithout a cross, ^^ can 
be connected with the old traditions of thy tribe 
and house ?" 

'' Listen. In coming from the field, I saw, 
half-covered by the ashes, a body clothed in a 
foreign garb. It lay face downward where the 
dead were thickest, one arm outstretched, the 
hand of which, gloved to the wrist, still gripped 
a sword, red to its jeweled hilt. The head 
was foul with ash and sand, but I noted that 

" When the raven was on the moon. An Indian descrip- 
tion of an eclipse. 

^^ A man without a cross, viz., a pure-blooded man, A 
white man without any Indian or foreign blood in his veins . 



42 Mamelons, 

the hair was black and long, and worn like a 
warrior's of our ancient race. Then I remem- 
bered a habit of bo^dsh days and pride. Trem- 
bling, I stooped, lifted the bod}^ upward and 
turned the dead face toward me. And there, 
there on that field of Mamelons, where it was 
said of old, before one of my blood had ever 
seen the salted shore, the last of our race 
should die, all foul with ash and sand and 
blood, brows knit with battle rage, teeth bared 
and tightly set, I saw my broiher^s face P^ 

^' God in heaven!" exclaimed the trapper. 
" How came he there, and who killed him ?" 

" John Norton, you know our cross, and that 
the best blood of the old world and the new, 
older than the old, is in our veins. My grand- 
sire was the son of one who stood next to the 
throne of France, and all our line have studied 
in her polished schools since red and white 
blood mingled in our veins. There did we 
two, my brother and I, remain until my father 
called us home. I left him high in the court's 
favor. Thence, suddenly, without sending 
word, with a young wife and office of trust, he 



The Fight at Manielons. 43 

voyaged, hoping to give me glad surprise. A 
tempest drove his ship on Labrador ; but he 
saved wife and gold. The Esquimaux proved 
friendly, and gave him help, and, reckless of 
consequence, as have been all our line since 
the French taint came to us, not knowing 
cause, he joined the wild horde, and came with 
them to fatal Mamelons and its dread fight. 

" So chanced it, trapper. I dropped the body 
from m}' arms, for a great sickness seized me 
and my head swam, and in the bloody tangle 
of dead bodies I sat limp and lifeless. . Then 
in a frenzy, clutching madl}' at a straw of 
hope, I tore the waistcoat, corded with gold, 
from the stiff breast to find proof that would 
not lie. And there, there aboVe his heart, with 
eyes bloodshot and bulging, I saw the emblem 
of our tribe — the Tortoise, with the round 
world on his back ; and through the sacred 
Totem of our ancient lineage, which our father's 
hand had tattooed on his chest and mine ; yea, 
through it and the white skin above his heart, 
there gaped a gash, swollen and red, which my 
own knife had made. For in the darkness of 



44 Ma me Ions. 

the fight, bearing up against an Esquimaux 
rush, ash blinded, I found a foe who swore in 
French and had a sword. He and I fought 
grappling in the da:"k, when the earth hove 
beneath our feet and ashes rained upon us; 
and his sword ran me through even as I thrust 
ni}^ long knife into him. 

" And thus at Mamelons, where sits the doom 
of our race awaiting us, in its dread fight, 
both fighting without cause, I slew my 
brother, and from his hand I got the wound 
from whose old poison I now die. 

'' Thus I stood among the dead at Mame- 
lons, a chief without a tribe and my brother's 
murderer. I moved some bodies and scraped 
downward, that I might have clean sand to 
fall upon ; then drew my knife to let life out, 
and thus meet bravely the old doom foretold 
for me and mine as awaiting us since man 
was born on the shore of that first world. 
But even as I bent to the knife's point, a 
voice called me and I turned. 

^' It was an Esquimau ; the only chief left 
from the fight ; my brother's host seeking my 



The Fight at Mamelons. 45 

brother. He knew me, for he and I had 
clinched in the great fight, bnt the earth 
opening parted us, and so both lived. Each 
felt for each as warriors feel for a brave foe 
when the red fight is ended and the field of 
death is heavy. Thus, battle tired, amid the 
dead, we lifted hands, palm outward, and met 
in peace. He knew the language of old 
France, and I told him of my woe, of our old 
race, of tribesmen dead, of brother slain by 
my own hand, and of the doom that waited 
for us over Mamelons. And then he spoke 
and told me what stayed my hand and held 
me unto further life. 

^^ Seven days I journeyed with him, and on 
the eighth came to where she sat, amid his 
children, in his rude house at Labrador. 
Never, since God created woman, was one 
made so beautiful as she. She was of that 
old Iberian race, whose birth is older than 
annals, whose men conquered the world and 
whose women wedded gods. She was a 
Basque,^^ and her ancestor's ships had an- 

^^ As far back in time as annals or tradition extend, a race 
of men called Iberians dwelt on the Spanish peninsula. 



46 Mamelons. 

chored under Mamelons a thousand 57'ears 
before the Breton came. Fresh from the 
dreadful field, with heart of lead, my brother's 

Winchell sa3\s that "these Iberians spread over Spain, 
Gaul, and the British Islands as early as 5000 B. C. When 
Eg3'pt was only at her fourth d3'nasty this race had con- 
quered all the world west of the Mediterranean" 

They originally settled Sardinia, Ital^^ and Sicily, and 
spread northward as far as Norway and Sweden. Strabo 
saj^s, speaking of a branch of this race : " The\^ employ the 
art of writing, and have written books containing memo- 
rials of ancient times, and also poems and laws set in verse, 
for which they claim an antiquit}' of 6000 3^ears. These 
old Iberians to-day are represented b3^ the Basques- The 
Basques are fast dying out, and but a small remnant is 
left. The3" undoubtedl3' represent the first race of men. 
The3' are proud, merr3^ and passionate. The women are 
very beautiful, and noted for their wit, vivacit3', and subtle 
grace of person. They love music, and dance much. 
Some of their dances are symbolic and connected with 
their ancient m3'steries. Their language is unconnected 
with an3' European tongue or dialect, but, strange to say, 
it is connected b3^ close resemblance, in many words, with 
the Mai}-a language of Central America and that of the 
Algolquin-Lenape and a few other of our Indian tribes. 
Duponceau sa3^s of the Basque tongue : 

' ' This language, preser\'ed in a corner of Europe by a 
few thousand Mountaineers, is the sole remaining fragment 
of perhaps a hundred dialects, constructed on the same 
plan, which probably existed and were universalh' spoken 
at a remote period in that quarter of the world. Like the 
bones of the mammoth, it remains a monument of the 
destruction produced by a succession of ages. It stands 
single and alone of its kind, surrounded hy idioms that 
have no affinitj' with it. ' ' 



The Fight at Mamelons, 47 

face staring whitely at me as I talked, I told 
her all — the fight, the death of brother and 
of tribe, and the doom that waited for our 
blood above the shining sands at Mamelons. 

^' She listened to the end. Then rose and 
took my hand and kissed it, saying : ' Brother, 
I kiss thy hand as head of our house. What's 
done is done. The dead cannot come back.' 
Then, covering up her face with her rich laces, 
she went within the hanging skins, and for 
seven days was hidden with her woe. 

"But when the seven days were passed she 
came, and we held council. Next morn, with 
ten canoes deep laden with gold and precious 
stuffs, that portion of her dower saved from the 
wreck, we started hitherward. This island, 
after many days of vo3^aging, we reached, and 
here we landed, by chance or fate I know not, 
for she spake the word that stopped us here, 
not I. For on this island did my fathers live, 
and here the fateful cross came to our blood, 
that cross with France which was not fit ; for 
the traditions of our tribe — a mystery for a 
thousand years — had said that any cross of red 



4,8 Mamelons, 

with white should ripen doom at Mamelons ; 
for there the white first landed on the shore of 
this western world.^' 

'' She needed refuge, for within her life an- 
other life was growing. Brooding, she prayed 
that the new soul within her might not be a 
boy. ' A boy,' she said, ^ must meet the doom 
foretold. A girl, perchance, might not be 
held.' Her faith and mine were one, save hers 
was older, she being of the old trunk stock, of 
which the world-supporting Tortoise were a 

" The antiquity of European visitation to the St. Law- 
rence is unascertained, and, perhaps, unascertainable. But 
there is good reason to think that long before Jacques Car- 
tier, Cabot, or even the Norsemen, ever saw the American 
continent, the old Basque people carried on a regular com- 
merce in fish and fur with the St. Lawrence. It is not 
impossible but that Columbus obtained sure knowledge of 
a western hemisphere from the old race, who dwelt, and 
had dwelt, immemorially among the mountains of Spain, 
as well as from the Norse charts. Their language, legends, 
traditions and niau}^ signs compel one to the conclusion 
that the old Iberian race, who once held all modern Europe 
and the British isle in subjection, was of ocean origin, and 
pushed on the van of an old-time and world-wide naviga- 
tion beyond the record of modern annals. Both Jacques 
Cartier and John Cabot found, with astonishment, old Basque 
names everywhere, as they sailed up the coast, the date of 
whose connection with the geography of the shores the na- 
tives could not tell. 



The Fight at Ma me Ions. 49 

brancti ; and so m}^ blood was later, flowing 
from noonday fountains, while hers ran warm 
and red, a pure, sole stream, which burst from 
out the ponderous front of dead eternity, when, 
with His living rod, God smote it, in the red 
sunrise of the world. On this her soul was 
set, nor could I change her thought with 
reason, which I vainly tried, lest if the birth 
should prove a boy, the shock should kill her. 
But she held stoutly to it, saying : 

'' 'The women of our race get what they 
crave. My child shall be a woman, and being 
so, win what she plays for.' 

'' And, lo ! she had her wish ; for when the 
babe was born it was a girl. 

'' All since is known to you, for you, by a 
strange fate, blown, like a cone of the high 
pine from the midst of whirlwinds, when for- 
est fires are kindled and the gales made by 
their heat blow hot a thousand miles across 
the land, dropped on this island like help from 
Heaven. Twice was I saved from death by 
thee. Twice was she rescued at the peril of 
thy life; mother and child, by thy quick 



50 Mamelons. 

hand, snatched out of death. And when the 
cursed fever came, and she and I lay, like two 
burnt brands, you nursed us both, and from 
your arms at last, her eyes upon you lovingly, 
her soul unwillingly went from us. And her 
sweet form, instinct with the old grace and 
passion of that vanished race which once out- 
rivaled Heaven's beauty and won wedlock with 
the gods, lay on your bosom as some rare 
rose, touched by untimely frost, while yet its 
royal bloom is opening to the sun, lies, leaf 
loosened, a lovely ruin rudely made on the 
harsh gravel walk." 

Here the chief stopped short, struck through 
and through with sharp pains. His face whit- 
ened and he groaned. The spasm passed, but 
left him weak. Rallying, with effort, he went 
on : 

" I must be brief. That spasm was the 
second. The third will end me. God ! How 
the old stab jumps to-night ! 

'' Trapper, 3^ou know how wide our titles 
reach. A hundred miles from east to west, 
from north to south, the manor runs. It is a 



The Fight at Mamelons. 51 

princely stretch. A time will come when 
cities will be on it, and its deeds of warranty 
be worth a kingdom. Wonld that a boy out- 
side the deadly limits of the cross, but dashed 
with the old blood in vein and skin, might be 
born to heir the place and live as master on 
these lakes and hills, where the great chiefs 
who bore the Tortoise sign upon their breasts 
when it upheld the world, beyond the years of 
mortal memory, lived and hunted ! For when 
the doom in the far past, before one of our 
blood had ever seen the salted shore, was 
spoken, it was said : 

'' ' This doom, for sin against the blood, shall 
not touch one born in the female line from sire 
without a cross.' 

" I tell you, trapper, a thousand chiefs of the 
old race would leave their graves and fight 
again at Mamelons to see the old doom broken, 
and a boy, with one trace of red blood in vein 
and skin, ruling as master here ! And I, who 
die to-night, I, and he who gave me death and 
whom I slew, would rise to lead them ! 

^' John Norton, you I have called ; you who 



52 Mamelons. 

have saved my life and whose life I have saved; 
you, who have stood in battle with me when 
the line wavered and we two saved the fight ; 
you who have the wild deer's foot, the cougar's 
strength, whose word once given stands, like 
a chief's, the test of fire ; you, all white in face, 
all red at heart, a Tortoise, and yet a man 
without a cross, have I called half a thousand 
miles to ask with dying breath this question : 

" May not that boy be born, the old race 
kept alive, the long curse stayed, and ended 
with my life forever be the doom of Mamelons ? 
Speak, trapper, friend, comrade in war, in 
hunt and hall, speak to my failing ear, that I 
may die exultant and tell the thousand chiefs 
that throng to greet me in the spirit land that 
the old doom is lifted and a race with blood of 
theirs in vein and skin shall live and rule for- 
ever mid their native hills ?" 

From the first word the strange tale, half 
chanted, had rolled on, like the great river flood- 
ing upward from the gulf, between narrowing 
banks, with swift and swifter motion, growing 
pent and tremulous as it flows, until it chal- 



The Fight at Mamelons, 53 

lenges the base of Cape Tourment with thun- 
der. And not until the dying chief, with head- 
long haste, had launched the query forth — the 
solemn query, whose answer w^ould fix the 
bounds of fate forever — did the trapper dream 
whither the wild tale tended. His face whit- 
ened like a dead man's, and he stood dumb — 
dumb with doubt and fear and shame. At last, 
with effort, as when one lifts a mighty weight, 
he said, and the words were heaved from out 
his chest, as great weights from deep depths: 
^' Chief, ye know not what ye ask. My God! 
I am not fit !" 

Across the swarth face of the dying man 
there swept a flash of flame, and his glazed 
eyes lighted with a mighty joy. 

"Enough! enough! It is enough!" he 
said. " The women of her race will have 
their wav, and she will win thee. God ! If I 
might live to see that brave boy born, the 
spent fountain of the old race filled again by 
that rich tide in her which flows red and warm 
from the sunrise of the world ! Nay, nay. 
Answer me not. I leave it in the hands of 



54 Mamelons. 

fate. Before I pass the seeing eye will come, 
and I shall see if sunlight shines on Mame- 
lons;^ 

He touched a silver bell above his head, 
and, after pause, the girl, in whom the beauty 
of her mother and her race lived on, whose 
form was lithe, but rounded full, whose face 
was dark as woods, but warmly toned with 
the old Basque splendor, like wine when light 
shines through it, type of the two oldest and 
handsomest races of the world, stood by his 
side. 

Long gazed the chief upon her, a vision too 
beautiful for earth, too warm for heaven. The 
light of a great pride was in his eyes, but 
shaded with mournful pity. 

'' Last of my race," he murmured. " Last 
of my blood, farewell ! Thou hast thy moth- 
er's beauty, and not a trace of the damned 
cross is on thee. Follow thou thy heart. The 
women of thy race won so. My feet are on 
the endless trail blazed by my fathers for ten 
thousand years. I cannot tarry if I would. 
I leave thee under care of this just man, Be 



The Fight at Mamelons. 55 

thou his comfort, as he will be thy shield. 
There is a chest, thy mother's dying gift, thou 
knowest where. Open and read, then shalt 
thou know. Trapper, read thou the ritual of 
the church above my bier. So shall it please 
thee. Thou art the only Christian I ever 
knew who kept his word and did not cheat 
the red man. Some trace of the old faiths, 
therefore, there must be in these modern 
creeds, albeit the holders of them cheat and 
fight each other. But, daughter of my house, 
last of m}^ blood, born under shadow, and it 
may be unto doom, make thou my burial in 
the old fashion of thy race, older than mine. 
These modern creeds and mushroom rituals 
are not for us whose faiths wxre born when 
God was on the earth, and His sons married 
the daughters of men. So bury me, that I 
may join the old-time people who lived near 
neighbors to this modern God, and married 
their daughters to His sons." 

Here paused he for a space, for the old 
wound jumped, and life flowed with his blood. 

Then suddenly a change came to his face. 



56 Mmnelons. 

His eyes grew fixed. He placed one hand 
above them, as if to help them see afar. A 
moment thus. Then, whispering hoarsely, 
said : * 

'' Take thou his hand. Cling to it. The 
old Tortoise sight at death is coming. I see 
the past and future. Daughter, I see thee 
now, and by thy side, thy arms around his 
neck, his arms round thee, the man with- 
out a cross ! Aye. She was right. ' The 
women of my race get what they crave.' Girl, 
thou hast won ! Rejoice, rejoice and sing. 
But, oh! my God! My God ! John Norton! 
Look ! Daughter, last of my blood, in spite 
of all, in spite of all, above thy head hangs, 
breaking black, the doom of Mamelons !" 

And with these words of horror on his lips, 
the chief, whose bosom bore the Tortoise sign, 
who killed his brother under doom at Mame- 
lons, fell back stone dead. 

So died he. On the third day they built his 
bier in the great hall, and placed him on it, 
stripped like a warrior, to his waist, for so he 
charged the trapper it should be. Thus sit- 



I 



The Fight at Maine Ions, 57 

ting in the great chair of cedar, hewn to the 
fragrant heart, in the wide hall, hound at feet, 
the Tortoise showing plainly on his breast, a 
fire of great knots, gummed with odorous pitch, 
blazing on the hearth, the two, each by the 
faith that guided, made, for the dead chief of 
a dead tribe, strange funeral. 

And first, the trapper, standing by the bier, 
gazed long and steadfastly at the dead man's 
face. Then the girl, going to the mantel, 
reached for a book and placed it in his hand 
and stood beside him. 

Then, after pause, he read : 

" I am the j^estirrection and the Life^ 
And the liturgy, voiced deeply and slowly 
read, as by one who readeth little and labors 
with the words, sounded through the great hall 
solemnly. 

Then the girl, standing by his side, in the 
splendor of her beauty, the lights shining 
warmly on the dark glor}- of her face, lifted up 
her voice — a voice fugitive from heaven's choir 
— and sang the words the trapper had intoned: 
" I ojn the resurrection and the LifeP 



58 - Mamelons. 

And her rich tones, pure as note of hermit 
thrush cleaving the still air of forest swamps ; 
clear as the song of morning lark singing in 
the dewy sky, rose to the hewn rafters and 
swelled against the compressing roof as if 
they would break out of such imprisonment, 
and roll their waves of sound afar and upward 
until they mingled with kindred tones in 
heaven. 

Again the trapper : 

'' He who believe th in me^ though he were 
dead^ yet shall he live /" 

And again the marvelous voice pealed forth 
the words of everlasting hope, as if from the 
old race that lived in the dawn of the world, 
whose blood was in her rich and red, had come 
to her the memory of the music they had 
heard run thrilling through the happy air 
when the stars of the morning sang together for 
joy. 

Alas, that such a voice from the old days of 
soul and song should lie smothered forever 
beneath the sand of Mamelons ! 

Thus the first part. For the trapper, like 



The FigJif at Maine tons. 59 

a Christian man without cross, would give his 
dead friend holy burial. Then came a pause. 
And for a space the two sat silent in the great 
hall, while the pitch knots -flamed and flared 
their splashes of red light through the gloom. 
Then rose the girl and took the trapper's 
place at the dead man's feet. Her hair, black 
with a glossy blackness, swept the floor. A 
jewel, large and lustrous, an heirloom of her 
mother's race, old as the world, burning with 
Atlantean flame, a miracle of stone-impris- 
oned fire, blazed on her brow. The large 
gloom of her eyes was turned upon the dead 
man's face, and the sadness of ten thousand 
years of life and loss was darkly orbed within 
their long and heavy lashes. Her small, 
swarth hands hung lifeless at her side, and 
the bowed contour of her face drooped heavy 
with grief. Thus she, clothed in black cloth 
from head to foot, as if that old past, whose 
child she was, stood shrouded in her form, 
ready to make wail for the glory of men and 
the beauty of women it had seen buried for- 
ever in the silent tomb. 



6o M ante Ions, 

Thus stood she for a time, as if she held 
communion with the grave and death. Then 
opened she her mouth, and in the mode when 
song was language, she poured her feelings 
forth in that old tongue, which, like some 
fragrant fragment of sweet wood, borne north- 
ward by great ocean currents out of southern 
seas, for many days storm tossed, but lodged 
at last on some far shore and found by those 
who only sense the sweetness, but know not 
whence it came, lies lodged to-day upon the 
mountain slopes of Spain. Thus, in the old 
Basque tongue, sweet fibre of lost root, un- 
known to moderns, but soft, and sad, and 
wild with the joy, the love, the passion often 
thousand years, this child of the old past and 
the old faiths, lifted up her voice and sang : 

''O death! I hate thee! Cold thou art 
and dreadful to the touch of the warm hand 
and the sweet lips which, drawn by love's dear 
habit, stoop to kiss the mouth for the long 
parting. Cold, cold art thou, and at thy touch 
the blood of men is chilled and the sweet glow 
in woman's bosom frozen forever. Thou art 



The Fight at Mamelons. 6i 

great nature's curse. The grape hates thee. 
Its blood of fire can neither make thee laugh, 
nor sing, nor dance. The sweet flower, and 
the fruit which ripens on the bough, nursing 
its juices from the maternal air, and the bird 
singing his love-song to his mate amid the 
blossoms — hate thee ! At touch of thine, O 
slayer! the flower fades, the fruit withers and 
falls, and the bird drops dumb into the grasses. 
Thou art the shadow on the sunshine of the 
world ; the skeleton at all feasts ; the mar- 
plot of great plans ; the stench which fouls 
all odors ; the slayer of men and the murderer 
of women. O death ! I, child of an old race, 
last leaf from a tree that shadowed the world, 
warm in my youth, loving life, loving health, 
loving love. O death ! how I hate thee !" 

Thus she sang, her full tones swelling fuller 
as she sang, until her voice sent its clear 
challenge bravely out to the black shadow on 
the sunshine of the world and the dread fate 
she hated. 

Then did she a strange thing ; a rite known 
to the morning of the world when all the liv- 



62 Mantel on s, 

ing lived in the east and the dead went west 
ward. 

She took a gourd, filled to the brown brim, 
and placed it in the dead man's stiffened 
hand, then laid a rounded loaf beside his knee, 
and on a plate of copper at his feet — serpent 
edged, and in the centre a pictured island 
lying low and long in the blue seas, bold with 
bluff mountains toward the east, but sinking 
westward until it ran from sight under the 
ocean's rim, a marvel of old art in metal work- 
ing, lost for aye — she placed a living coal, 
and on it, from a golden acorn at her throat, 
which opened at touch, she shook a dust, 
which, falling on the coal, burned rosy red 
and filled the hall with languous odors sweet 
as Heaven. Then, at triumphant pose, she 
stood and sang : 

Water for thy thirst I have given, 
Hurry on ! hurry on ! 

Bread for thy hunger beside thee, 
Speed away ! speed away ! 

Fire for thy need at thy feet, 

Mighty chief, fl}^ fast and fly far [waiting. 

To the land where thv father and clansmen are 



The Fight at Mamelons, 63 

Odor and oil for the woman thou lovest, 
Sweet and smooth may she be on thy breast, 
When her soft arms enfold thee. 

O death ! thou art cheated ! 
He shall thirst never more ; 
He shall eat and be filled ; 
The fire at his feet will revive him ; 
Oil and odor are his for the woman he loves ; 
He shall live, he shall live on forever 
With his sires and his people. 
He shall love and be loved and be happy. 

O! death grim and great, 
O ! death stark and cold, 
By a child of the old race that first lived 

And first met thee ; 
The race that lived first, still lives 

And will live forever. 
By a child of the old blood, by a girl ! 

Thou art cheated ! 



CHAPTER III. 

THE mother's message. 

EVENING was on the woods. The girl 
sat reading her mother's message, 
taken from the golden chest that 
owned the golden key. And this is what she 
read : 

^^ My daughter: They tell me I must die. I 
know it, for a chill, strange to my blood, is 
creeping through and thickening in my 
veins. It is the old tale told from the begin- 
ning of the world — of warm blood frozen when 
'tis warmest, and beauty blasted at its fullest 
bloom. For I am at that age when woman's 
nature gives most and gets most from sun and 
flower, from touch of baby hands and man's 
strong love, and all the blood within her moves, 
tremulous with forces whose working makes 
her pure and sweet, as moves the strong wine 

64 



The Mother'^ s Message, 65 

in the cask when ripening its red strength and 
flavor. O daughter of a race that never lied 
save for a loved one! blood of my blood, remem- 
ber that your mother died hating to die ; died 
when life was fullest, sweetest, fiercest in her; 
for life is passionate force, and when full is 
fierce to crave, to seek, to have and hold, and 
has been so since man loved woman and by 
woman was beloved. And so it is with me. A 
woman, I crave to live, and, craving life, must 
die. 

"Death! how I hate thee! What right hast 
thou to claim me now when I am at my sweet- 
est ? The withered and the wrinkled are for 
thee. For thee the colorless cheek, the shriv- 
eled breast, the skinny hand that shakes as 
shakes the leaf, frost smitten to its fall, the 
lustreless eye, and the lone soul that looketh 
longingly ahead where wait its loved ones ; 
such are for thee, not I. For I am fair and 
fresh and full through every vein of those 
quick forces, which belong to life, and hate the 
grave. This, that you may know 3^our mother 
died unwillingly, and in death hated death, as 



66 Mamelons, 

all of the old race and faith have done since he 
first came, a power, a mystery and a cnrse into 
the world. For in the ancient annals of our 
fathers it was written ' that in the beginning 
of the world there was no death, but life was 
all in all.' God talked with them as father 
talks with children ; their daughters were mar- 
ried to His sons, and earth and heaven were 
one. 

" Your father was of France, but also of that 
blood next oldest ours. He was Lenape, a 
branch blown from that primal tree which 
was the world's first growth, whose roots ran 
under ocean before the first world sank ; a 
branch blown far by fate, which, falling, struck 
deep into the soil of this western world, and, 
vital with deathless sap, grew and became a 
tree. This was in ancient days, when thoughts 
of men were writ in pictures and the round 
world rested on a Tortoise's back — emblem of 
water. For the first world was insular, and 
blue seas washed it from end to end, a mighty 
stretch, which reached from sunrise into sunset, 
through many zones. Long after men lost 



The Mother^ s Message, 67 

knowledge and the earth was flat, and for a 
thousand years the Tortoise symbol was an 
unread riddle save to us of the old blood, who 
knew the pictured tongue, and laughed to see 
the later races, mongrel in blood and rude, 
flatten out the globe of God until it la}^ flat as 
their ignorance. Your father was Lenape, 
who bore upon his breast the Tortoise symbol 
of old knowledge made safe by sacredness ; 
for the wise men of his race, that the old fact 
might not be lost, but borne safely on like a 
dry seed blown over deserts until it comes to 
water, and, lodging, finds chance to grow into 
a full flowered, fruitful tree, made it, when 
they died and knowledge passed, the Totem 
of his tribe. Thus the dead symbol kept the 
living fact alive. Nor was there lacking other 
proofs that his blood was one with mine, 
thouo^h reachinor us throuo^h world-wide chan- 
nels. For in his tongue, like flecks of gold in 
heaps of common sand, were words of the old 
language, clear and bright with the original 
lustre, when gold was sacred ornament and 
had no vulgar use. The mongrel moderns 



68 Mamelons. 

have made it base and fouled it with dirty 
trade ; but in the beginning, and by those of 
primal blood, who knew the^^ were of heaven, 
it was a sacred metal, held for God.^^ 

"We met in France, and by French custom 
were allied. I was a girl, and knew not my 
own self, and he a boy scarce twenty. Reasons 
of state there were to prompt our marriage, 
and so we were joined. He was of our old 
blood. That drew me, and no other thing, for 
love moved not within me, but nested calmly 
in my breast as a young bird, ere yet its' wings 
are grown or it has thrilled with flight, rests 
in its downy cincture. He died at Mamelons ; 
died under doom. You know the tale. He 
died and you came, fatherless, into the v/orld. 

"You are your mother's child. In face and 

^^ Among many of the ancient races gold and silver were 
sacred metals, not used in commerce, but dedicated as 
votive offerings, or sent to the temples as dues to the gods. 
Nothing more astonished and puzzled the natives of Peru 
and Mexico than the eagerness with which the Spaniards 
sought for gold, and the high value the}^ put upon it, A 
West Indian savage traded a handful of gold dust with one 
of the sailors with Columbus for some small tool, and then 
ran as for his life to the woods, lest the sailor should repent 
his bargain and demand the tool to be given back ! 



The Mother's Message. 69 

form, in eye aud every look, you are of me and 
not of him. The French cross in his blood 
made weakness, and the stronger blood pre- 
vailed. This is the law. A turbid stream 
sinks with quick ebb ; the pure flows level on. 
The Jews prove this. The ancient wisdom 
stands in them. The creed, which steals from 
their old faith, whatever makes it strong, has 
armed the world against them, but their blood 
triumphs. The old tide, red and true, un- 
mixed, pure, laughs at these mongrel streams. 
Strong with pure strength it bides its time. 
The world will yet be theirs, and so the pro- 
phecy of their sacred books be met. Pure 
blood shall v/in, albeit muddy veins to-day are 
boasted of by fools. 

"But we are older far than they. The Jews 
are children, while on our heads the rime of 
hoar}^ time rests white as snow. Our race was 
old when Egypt, sailing from our ancestral 
ports, reached, as a colon}^, the Nile.^^ From 

^^ It is certain that the Iberian race settled on the Spanish 
peninsula a long time before the Egyptians, a sister colony 
from the same unknown parental source, doubtless, began 
their marvelous structures on the Nile. 



70 Mamelons. 

tideless Sea,^*^ to the Green Island in the west,^^ 
from southern Spain to Arctic zones, the old 
Basque banner waved; while under Mamelons, 
where waits the doom for insult to pure blood, 
your fathers anchored ships from the begin- 
ning. What loss came to the earth when the 
gods of the old world, of whom we are, sank 
under sea and with them took the perfect 
knowledge ! Alas ! alas ! the chill creeps in 
and on and I must hurry ! I would make you 
wise before I die with a wisdom which none 
save the women of our race might speak or 
learn. 

" You will read this when I am fixed among 
the women of our race in the great realms 
where they are queens. For since the first 
the women of our race have ruled and had 
their way, whether for good or ill, and both 
have come to them and through them unto 
others. And so forever will it be. For beauty 
is a fate, and unto what 'tis set none know. 
The issue proves it and nought else. So be 

'° The Mediterranean. 
^^ Ireland. 



The Mother'' s Message. 71 

it. She who has the glory of the fate should 
have the courage to bide issue. 

" Your body is my body ; your face my face ; 
your blood my blood. The warmth of the 
old fires are in it, and the sweet heat which 
glows in you will make you understand. You 
are my child, and being so, I give you of my- 
self. I love. Love as the women of our race 
and only they may love. Love with a love 
that maketh all my life so that without it all 
is death to me. That love I, dying, bestow 
on you. It came to me like flash of fire 
on altar when hol}^ oils are kindled and the 
censer swung. Here I first met him. Death 
had me. He fought and took me from his 
hand. In the beginning, men were lar^e and 
strong, and women beautiful. Giants were on 
the earth, and our mothers wedded them. 
Each was a rose, thorn-guarded, and the 
strongest plucked her when in blocm and 
wore her, full of sweets, upon his bosom. 
Since then the women of our blood have loved 
large men. Weak ones we hated. Non^, save 
the mighty, brawny, and brave have ever felt 



72 Maine lo?is. 

our soft arms round them, or our mouths on 
tlieirs. Thus has it been. 

'' I loved him, for his strength was as the 
ancients, and with it gentleness like the gods. 
But he was humble, and knew not his own 
greatness, and, blinded by humility, he would 
not see that I was his. So I waited, waited as 
all women wait, that they may win. It is not 
art, but nature, the nature of a rose, which, 
daily opening more and more to perfect bloom 
in his warm light, makes the sun know his 
power at last. For love reveals all greatness 
in us, as it does all faults. Well did I know 
that he should see at last his fitness for me, 
and, without violence to himself, yield to my 
loveliness and be drawn within the circle of 
my arms. So should I win at last, as have 
the women of our race won always. But 
death mars all. So has it been since w^omen 
lived. His is the only knife whose edge may 
cut the silken bonds we wind round men. 
Vain is all else. Faiths may not stand against 
us, nor pride, nor honor. Our power draws 
stronger. The grave alone makes gap 'twixt 



The Mother"^ s Message. 73 

lovely woman's loving and bridal bed. So, 
dying thns before my time I am bereft of all. 

'' Bnt yon shall win, for in yon I shall live 
again and to full time. I know that yon will 
love him, for you drew ni}^ passion to you 
with my milk, and all my thoughts were of 
him, when, with large, receptive eyes, 3^on lay 
a baby in my arms, day after day, scanning 
my face, love-lighted for him. A3^e, you will 
love him. For in your sleep, cradled on the 
heart that worshiped him, its warmth for him 
warmed you, its beating thrilled, and from my 
mouth, murmured caressingly in dreams, your 
ears and tongue learned his dear name before 
mine own. So art thou fated unto love as I 
to death. Both could not win, and hence, 
perhaps, 'tis well I die. For had both lived, 
then both had loved, mother and child been 
rivals, and one suftered worse than dying. 
Nor am I without joy. For once, when I was 
wooing him with art he did not know, coax- 
ing him up to me with sweet praises sweetly 
said, and purposely I swayed so my warm 
body fell into his arms and there lay for a 



74 Manielons. 

moment, vibrant, all aglow, while all my 
woman's soul went througli my lifted and 
dimmed eyes to him, I saw a flash of fire 
flame in his face, and felt a throb jump 
through his body, as the God woke in him, 
which told me he was mortal. And, faint 
with joy, I slid downward from his arms and 
in the fragrant grasses sat, throbbing, cover- 
ing up my face with happy hands lest he 
should see the glory of it and be frightened 
at what his touch had done. I swear b}^ the 
old blood, that moment's triumph honored, 
that the memory of that blissful time takes 
the sting from death and robs the grave of 
victory, as I lie dying. 

"Yea, thou shalt win. The power will be in 
thee, as it has been in me, to win him or any 
whom women made as we set heart on. But 
woo him with that old art of innocence, snow 
white, though hot as fire, lost to the weak or 
brazen women of these mongrel races that fill 
the world to-day, who dare not dare, or daring, 
overdo. Be slow as sunrise. Let thy love 
dawn on him as morning dawns upon the 



The Mother^ s Message. 75 

earth, and warmth and light grow evenly, lest 
the quick flash blind him, or the sudden 
heat appall, and he see nothing right, but 
shrink from thee and his new self as from a 
wicked thing. I may not help thee. What 
fools these moderns are to think so. The 
dead have their own lives and loves, and note 
not the living. Else none might be at peace 
or know comfort above the sky, and all souls 
would make wail for. wrongs and woes done 
and borne under sun. So is it well that part- 
ing should be parting, and what wall divides 
the dead from living be beyond penetra- 
tion. For each woman's life is sole. Her 
plans are hidden with her love. Her skill is 
of it a sweet secrecy, and all her winning is 
self-won. I do not fear. Thou wilt have the 
wooing wisdom of thy race. Thy eyes are 
such as men give life to look into. The pas- 
sion in thy blood would purchase thrones. 
Thou hast the grace of form which maddens 
men. Thy voice is music. Thy touch warm 
velvet to the skin. The first and perfect 
woman lives complete, in thee ! 



']6 ' Ma me Ions. 

" No more. In the old land no one is left. 
The modern cancer eats all there. New fash- 
ions and new faiths crowd in. Only low blood 
is left, and that soon yields to pelf and pain. 
Last am I of the qneenly line and thou art 
last of me. I came of gods. I go to gods. 
The tree that bore the fruit of knowledge for 
our sex in the sunrise of. the world is stripped 
to the last sweet leaf. If thou shalt die leav- 
ing no root, the race ^God made is ended. 
With thee the gods quit earth, and the old 
red blood beats back and upward to the skies. 
Gold hast thou and broad acres. Youth and 
health are thine. Win his great strength to 
thee, for he is pure as strong, and from a 
primal man get perfect children, that in this 
new world in the west a new race may arise 
rich in old blood, born among the hills, strong 
with the strength of trees, whose sons shall 
be as mountains, and whose daughters as the 
lakes, whose loveliness is lovelier because of 
the reflected mountains dimly seen in them. 

^'Farewell. Love greatly. It is the only way 
that leadeth woman to her heaven. The mod- 



The Mother'' s Message. . 77 

erns liave a saying in their creed that God is 
love. In the beginning he was Father. The 
race that sprung from Him said that, and said 
no more. It was enough. Love then was hu- 
man, and we gloried i;i it. Not the pale love 
of barren nun, but love red as the rose, warm 
as the sun, the love of motherly women, sweet 
mouthed, deep breasted, voiced with cradle songs 
and soft melodies which made men love their 
homes. Love thou and live on the old level. 
Be not ashamed to be full woman. Love 
strength. Bear children to it. Be mother of 
a mighty race born for this western world. 
Multiply. Inherit ; and send the old blood 
flowing from thy veins, a widening current, 
thrilling through the ages ; that it may be as 
red, as pure, as strong at sunset as it was in 
the sunrise of the world. 

"Once more, farewell, sweet daughter. These 
are last words, a voice from out the sunset, 
sweet and low as altar hymn wandering down 
the columned aisles of some old temple. So 
may it sound to thee. So live, so woo, so 
win, that when thou comest through the por- 



78 Mamelom. 

tals of the west to that fair throne amid 
those other ones which stretch their state- 
liness across the endless plain of ended 
things, which waits for thee as one has 
waited for every woman of our queenly line, 
thou shalt leave behind at going a new and 
noble race, from thee and him, in which the 
east and west, the sunrise and the sunset of 
the world shall, like two equal glories, meet 
condensed and shine. So fare thee well. Fear 
not Mamelons. For if thou failest there, thou 
shalt be free of fault, and all the m3^riad mil- 
lions of our blood shall out of sunset march, 
and from the shining sands of fate lift thee 
high and place thee on the last, the highest, 
and the whitest throne of our old line. So 
ends it. One more sweet kiss, sweet one. One 
more long look into his face — grave, grave and 
sad he gazeth at me. God ! What a face he 
has ! Shall I find match for it to-morrow w^hen 
I stand, amid the royal, beyond sunset ? Per- 
haps. Death, you have good breeding. You 
have waited well. Come, now, I will go on 
with thee. Yes, yes, I see the way. 'Tis very 



The Mother h Message, 79 

plain. It has been hollowed by so many feet. 
Good-bye to earthly light and life. It may be 
I shall find a better. I'll know to-morrow." 

Here the scroll ended. Long the living sat 
pondering what the dead had writ. She kissed 
the writing as it were holy text. Then placed 
it in the chest, and turned the golden key and 
said : " Sweet mother, thou shalt live in me. 
Our race shall not die out. My love shall win 
him.'^ Then went she to the great room 
where the trapper sat by the red fire and said: 
" John Norton, thou art my guest. What may 
I do to pleasure thee ? Here thou must stay 
until my mind can order out my life and make 
the dubious road ahead look plain. While 
underneath my roof, I pray, command me.'^ 

All this with such grave dignity and sweet 
grace as she were queen and he some kinsman, 
great and wise. 

The trapper stooped and lifted a huge log 
upon the fire, which broke the lower brands. 
The chimney roared, and the large room 
brightened to the flame. Then, facing her, he 
said : 



8o Mamelons. 

" Guest I am and servant, both in one, and 
must be so awhile. Winter is on us. The fire 
feels snow. It putters as if the flakes were 
falling in it. It is a sign that never lies. 
Hark ! you can hear the konk of geese as 
they wedge southward. The winter will be 
long, but I must stay." 

" And are you sorry you must stay ?" re- 
plied the girl. " I will do what I may to make 
the days and nights pass swiftly.'^ 

^' Nay, nay, you do mistake," returned the 
trapper. ^' I am not sorry for myself, but thee. 
If I may only help thee: how can I help thee?" 

^'John Norton," replied the girl, and she 
spoke with sweet earnestness as when the 
heart is vocal, ^' thou art a man, and wise ; I 
am a girl, and know naught save books. But 
you, you have seen many men and tribes of 
men; counciled with chiefs, been comrade 
with the great, sharing their inner thoughts in 
peace and war, and thou hast done great 
deeds thyself, of which fame speaks widely. 
Why do you cheapen your own value so, call- 
ing thyself a common man ? My uncle said you 



Th£ Mothers Message. 8i 

were the best, the bravest, and the wisest man 
he ever met, and he had sat with kings and 
chiefs, and heard the best men of both worlds 
tell all they knew. Dear friend, wilt thou not 
be my teacher, and teach me many things, 
which lietli now, like treasures hidden, locked 
in thy silence ?" 

" I teach thee !" exclaimed the trapper. "I, 
an unlettered man, a hunter of the woods, 
teach one who readeth every tongue, who 
knoweth all the past, to the beginning of the 
world, whose head has in it all these shelves 
of knowledge," and the trapper swept a gesture 
toward the long rows of books that thickened 
one side of the great hall from floor to ceiling. 
" I teach thee !" 

'' Yes, you," answered the girl. ^' You can 
teach me, or any woman that ever lived, or any 
man. For 3^ou were given at your birth the 
seeing eye, the listening ear, and the still pa- 
tience of the mountain cat, which on the bare 
bough sits watching, from sunset until sun- 
rise, motionless. In the old days such gifts 
meant wisdom, wider, deeper, more exact 



82 ManieloJis. 

than that of books, for so my mother often 
told me. She said the wisest men who ever 
live-d were those who, in deep woods and caves 
and on the shore of seas, saw, heard, and 
pondered on the life and mysteries of nature, 
noting all things, small and great, cause and 
effect, tracing out connections which interlace 
the parts into one whole, so making one solid 
woof of knowledge, covering all the world of 
fact and substance in the end. And once, 
when you were in the mood, and had been 
talking in the hall, drawn on and out by her, 
3^ou told of climes and places you had seen, 
and strange' things met in wandering, of great 
mounds builded by some ancient race, long 
dead ; of cities, under sunset, still standing 
solid, without men ; of tall and shapel}^ pil- 
lars, writ with mystic characters, on the far 
shore of the mild sea, vs^hence sailed the old 
dead of my race, at dying, far av/ay to western 
heavens, where to-da}^ they live ; of caverns in 
deep earth, made glorious with crystals, sta- 
lactites, prisms, and shining ornaments, where, 
in old time, the gods of the under world were 



The Mother^ s Message. 83 

chambered ; of trees that mingled bloom and 
fruitage the long year through, and flowers 
that never faded till the root died out ; of 
creeping reptiles, snakes, and savage poison- 
ous things that struck to kill, and of their 
antidotes, growing for man and beast amid the 
very grasses where they secreted venom ; of 
rivers wide and deep, boiling up through solid 
earth, full-tided, which, flowing widely on, 
dropped suddenly like a plummet to the cen- 
tre of the world ; of plains, fenced by the sky, 
far reaching as the level sea, so that the red 
sun rose and set in grasses ; of flres, which lit 
by lightning, blackened the stars with smoke 
and burned all the world ; of oceans in the 
west, which, flowing with joint floods, fell over 
mountains, plunging their weights of water 
sheer downward, so that their rocky frame- 
work of the round earth shook ; of winds that 
blew as out of chaos, revolving on a hollow 
axis like a wheel buzzing, invisible, charged 
to the centre with electric force, and fires 
which burst explosive, kindling the air like 
tinder ; and of ten thousand marvels and curi- 



84 Mamelons. 

oils things, which you had met, noted, and 
pondered on, seeking to know the primal fact 
or force which underlaid them. So that my 
mother said that night, when we were in our 
chamber, that you were the wisest man she 
ever met ; wise with the wisdom of her ancient 
folk, whose knowledge lived, oral and terse, 
before the habit of bookmaking came to rive 
the solid substance, heavy and rich, into thin 
veneer, to make vain show for fools to wonder 
at. Teach me ! Who might thou not teach, 
thou seeing, silent man,t}'peof my first fathers, 
who, gifted watli rare senses and with wit to 
question nature and to learn, mastered all wis- 
dom before books were." 

*' Aye, aye," returned the trapper, not dis- 
pleased to hear her praise as rare what seemed 
to him so common, " these things I know in 
truth, for I have wandered far, seen much, and 
noted closely, and he who sleeps in w^oods has 
time to think. But, girl, I am an unlearned 
man, and know naught of books." 

" Books !" exclaimed the girl. " What are 
books but oral knowledge spread out in words 



The Mother's Message. 85 

wliicli lack the fire of forceful utterance ? But 
you shall know them. The winter days are 
short, the nights are long ; our toil is simple ; 
wood for the fire, food for the table, and a swift 
push each day along the snow for exercise ; 
or, if the winds will keep some acres clean, 
our skates shall ring to the smitten ice, pierc- 
ing it with tremblings till all the shores cry 
out. All other hours for sleep and books. I 
read in seven tongues, one so old that none 
save I in all the world can read it ; for it was 
writ when letters were a myster}^, known only 
unto those who fed the sacred fire and kept 
God's altars warm. And I will read you all 
the wisdom of the world, and its rare laughter, 
which, mother said, was the fine effervesce of 
wisdom, the pungent foam and sparkle of it. 
So you shall know. And one old scroll there 
is, rolled in foil of gold, sealed with the ser- 
pent seal, symbol of eternity, scribed with 
pictured knowledge, an heirloom of my race, 
whose key alone I have, writ in rainbow colors, 
when the world was young, the language of 
the gods, who first made signs for speech and 



86 Mamelons. 

put the speaking mouth upon a page. It was 
the first I learned. My mother taught it to 
me standing at her knee — for so the law says 
it shall be done, a law old with twice ten 
thousand years of age — that he who knows 
this scroll shall teach it, under silence, to his 
or her first born, standing at knee, that the 
old knowledge of prime things and days may 
not perish from the earth it tells of, but live 
on forever while the earth endures. For on it 
is the record of the beginning, told by those 
who saw it ; of the first man and how he came 
to be ; of woman, first, when born and of what 
style. A list of healing simples, antidotes 
'gainst death, and of rare oils which search 
the bones and members of the mortal frame 
and banish pain ; and others yet, sweet to the 
nose, and volatile, that make the face to shine, 
for feasts and happy days, and being poured 
on women, make their skin softer than down, 
whiter than drifted snow, and so clean and 
clear that the rich blood pinks through it like 
a red rose centred in crystal. And on it, too, 
is written other and strange rules, wild and 



The Mcther's Message. Sj 

weird. How one may have the seeing eye 
come to liim. How to call up the wicked 
dead from under ground, and summon from 
their heaven in the west, where they live and 
love, the blessed. How marriage came to man 
with woman. What part is his to act and 
what part hers, that each may be a joy to 
other, and she, thus honored, be as sweet slip 
grafted on a vital trunk, full flowered in fullest 
growth, and fruitful of what the old gods 
loved, children, healthy, fair, and strong ; all 
will I read thee, talking as we read, that we, 
with sharpened thought, may bite through to 
the vital gist, deep centred within the hard 
rind of words, and taste the living sweetness 
of true sense. So will we teach each other 
and grow wise equally ; you, me the knowl- 
edge of things and places you have seen, I, 
you the knowledge writ in books that I have 
read." 



CHAPTER IV. 
love's victory. 

NEXT day, the trapper's sign proved 
true. Wiuter fell whitely on the 
world. Its soft fleece floated down- 
ward to the earth whiter than washed wools. 
The waters of the lake blackened in contrast 
to the shores. The flying leaves — tardy va- 
grants from the branch — were smothered mid 
the flakes, and dropped like shot birds. To- 
ward night the wind arose. The forest moaned 
heavily. At sunset, in the gray gloom, a flock 
of ducks soared southward through the whirl- 
ing storm. A field of geese, leaderless, bewil- 
dered, blinded by the driving flakes, scented 
water, and, like a noisy mob, fell, with a mighty 
splash, into the lake. Summer went with the 
day, and with the night came winter, white, 
88 



Lovers Victory. 89 

cold, and stormy, roaring violently tlirougli the 
air. 

In the great hall sat the two. The logs, 
piled on the wide hearth, glowed red — a solid 
coal from end to end, cracked with concentric 
rings. They reddened the hall, books, skins, 
and antlered trophies of the chase. The 
strong man and the girl's dark face stood forth 
in the warm luminance, pre-Raphaelite. The 
trapper sat in a great chair, built solidly of 
rounded wood, untouched b}^ tool, but softly 
cushioned. The girl, recumbent, rested on a 
pile of skins, black with the glossy blackness 
of the bear, full furred. Her dress, a garnet 
velvet, from the looms of France. Her mocca- 
sins, snow white. On either wrist a serpent 
coil of gold. A diamond at her throat. A red 
fez on her head, while over her rich dress the 
glossy masses of her hair fell tangled to her 
feet. She read from an old book, bound with 
rich plush, whose leaves were vellum, edged 
with artful garniture and lettered richly with 
crimson ink — a precious relic of old literature, 
saved from those vandal flames which burned 



90 



Mamelons. 



the stored knowledge of the world to ashes at 
Alexandria. The characters were Phoenician, 
and told the story of that race to which we 
owe our modern alphabet ; whose ships, a thou- 
sand years before the Christ, went freighted 
with letters, seeking baser commerce, to every 
shore of the wide world. She read by the red 
firelight, and the ruddy glow fell vividly on 
the pictured page, the rich dress outlining her 
full form and the swarth beaut}^ of her face. 
It was the story of an old race — no library has 
it now — the story of their rise, their glory, and 
their fall. She read for hours, pausing here 
and there to tell her listener of connecting 
things — of Rome that was not then ; of Greece 
yet to be born ; of Egypt, swarming on the 
Nile and building monuments for eternity, 
and of her ancient race, west of the tideless sea, 
whose annals, even then, reached backward 
through ten thousand years, thus making clear 
what otherwise were dark, and teaching him 
all history. So passed the hours till midnight 
struck. Then she arose, and lifting goblet 
half-filled with water, poured it on the hearth, 



Love's Victory, 91 

saying : '' I spill this water to a race whose 
going emptied half the world." This solemnly, 
for she was of the past, and held to its old 
fashions, knowing all its symbolism, its rites, 
its daily customs, and what they meant, for so 
she had been taught, and nothing else, by her 
whose blood and beauty she repeated. Then 
she took the trapper's hand and laid it on her 
head, bent low, and said : " Dear friend, I am so 
glad to serve you. I have enjoyed this night be- 
yond all nights I ever knew. I hope for many 
others like to it, and even sweeter." And saying 
this she looked with glad and peaceful eyes into 
his face, and glided noiselessly from the room. 
The trapper piled high the logs again, and, 
lying down upon the skins where she had lain, 
gazed with wide eyes into the coals. The 
gray was in the sky before he slept, and in his 
sleep he murmured: '^It cannot be. I am an 
unlearned man and poor. I am not fit." 
Above him in her chamber, nestling in sleep, 
the girl sighed in her dreams and murmured : 
'' How blind he is !" And then : " My love 
shall win him !" 



92 Marnelons. 

Dear girl, sweet soul of womanhood, gift to 
tliese gilded days from the old solid past, I 
would the thought had never come to me to 
tell this tale of Mamelons ! 

So went the winter; and so the two grew up- 
ward side b}^ side in knowledge. He learning 
of the past as taught in books ; of men long 
dead whose names had been unknown to him ; 
of deeds done by the mighty of the world ; of 
cities, monuments, tombs long buried ; of 
races who mastered the world and died mas- 
tered by their own w^eakness ; of faiths, 
philosophies, and creeds once bright and strong 
as fire, now cold and weak as sodden ashes ; 
of vanished rites and mysteries and lost arts 
which once were the world's wonder — all were 
unfolded to him, so that his strong mind 
grasped the main point of each and understood 
the whole. And she learned much from him; 
of bird and beast and fish ; of climates and 
their growths ; of rocks and trees ; of nature's 
signs and movements by day and night; of 
wandering tribes and mongrel races; the lore 
of woods and waters and the differences in 



Lovers Victory. 93 

governments which shape the lives of men. 
So taught they each the other ; she, swift of 
thought and fall of eastern fire ; he, slower 
minded, but calm, sagacious, comprehensive, 
remembering all and settling all in wise con- 
clusion. Two better halves, in mind and soul 
and body, to make a perfect whole, were never 
brought by fate together since God made 
male and female. The past and present, fire 
and wood, fancy and judgment, beauty to win 
and strength to hold, sound minds in sound 
bodies, the perfect womanhood and manhood 
ideal, typical, met, conjoined in them. 

Slowly she won him. Slowly she drew him, 
with the innocence of loving, to oneness in 
wish and thought and feeling, with her sweet 
self. Slowly, as the moon lifts the great tide, 
she lifted him toward her, until his nature 
stood highest, full flooded, nigh, bathed in all 
the wide, deep flowing of its greatness, in her 
white radiance. It was an angel's mission, 
and all the wild passion of her blood, barbaric, 
original, w^as sobered with reverent thought of 
the great destiny that she, wedded to him. 



94 Mamelons. 

stood heir to. She had no other hope, nor 
wish, nor dream, than to be his. She was all 
w^oman. This life was all to her. She had no 
future. If she had, she wisely put it by until 
she came to it. She took no thought of far 
to-morrow. Sufficient for the day was the joy 
or sorrow of it. She lived. She loved. That 
was enough. What more might be to woman 
than to live, to love, worship her husband and 
bear children ? Such life were heaven. If 
other heaven there was she could not crave it, 
being satisfied. So felt she. So had she felt. 
So acted that it might be ; and now, at last, 
she stood on that white line each perfect woman 
climbs to, passing which, radiant, content, 
grateful, she enters heaven. 

H: :> :•: '•:■ :> ♦ :!: "" * 

Spring came. Heat touched the snow, and 
it grew liquid. The hills murmured as with 
many tongues, and low music flowed rippling 
down their sides. The warm earth sweetened 
with odors. Sap stirred in root and bough, 
and the fibred sod thrilled with delicious pas- 
sages of new life. 



Love's Victory, 95 

From tlie far South came flaming plumage, 
breasts of gold and winged music to the 
groves. The pent roots of herbs, spiced and 
pungent, burst upward through the moistened 
mould, and breathed wild, gamy odors through 
the woods. The skeleton trees thickened 
with leaf formations, and hid their naked 
grayness under green and gold. Each day 
birds of passage, pressed by parental instinct, 
slanted wings toward the lake, and, sailing 
inward, to secluded bays, made haste to search 
for nests. Mother otters swam heavy through 
the tide, and the great turtles, lumbering 
from the water, digged deep pits under 
starlight, in the sand, and cunningly piled 
their pyramid of eggs. All nature loved and 
mated, each class of life in its own order, and 
God began the recreation of the world. 

The two were standing under leafy screen 
on the lake's shore, the warm sun overhead 
and the wide water lying level at their feet. 
Nature's mood was on them, and their hearts, 
like equal atmospheres, flowed to sweet union. 
Reverently they spoke, as soul to soul, con- 



96 Maiiielons. 

csaling- notliing, having iiotliing to conceal, of 
tlieir deep feeling and of duty nnto each. 
The girl held up her clean, sweet nature unto 
him, that he might see it, wholly his forever; 
and he kept nothing back. She knew he 
loved her, and to her the task to make him 
feel the honor she received in being loved by 
him. So stood tlie}^, alone in the deep woods, 
apart from men, in grave, sweet counsel. 
Thus spake the man : 

'' I love you, Atla ; 3^ou know it. I would 
lay down ni}^ life for you. But our marriage 
may not be. I am too old." 

"Too old!" replied the girl. ''Thou hast 
seen fort}^ ^^ears, I twenty. Thou art the riper, 
sweeter, better ; that is all. I would not wed 
a bo3\ The women of our race have wedded 
men, big bodied, strong to fight, to save, to 
make home safe, their countr}^ free, and fame, 
that richest herita-^e to children. AIv mother 
broke the rule, and rued it. She might have 
rued it worse had death not cut the tighten- 
ing error which knotted her to coming torture. 
My heart holds hard to the old law made for 



Lovers Victory. 97 

the Vv^omcn of our race b}^ ancient wisdom ; 
' Wed not boys, but wed grave and gentle men. 
For women would be ruled, and who, of pride 
aud fire, would be ruled by striplings.' And 
again : ' Let ivy seek the full-grown oak, nor 
cling to saplings.' I love the laws that were, 
love the old faiths and customs. They filled 
the world v/ith beauty and brave men. They 
gave great nature opportunity' to keep great, 
kept noble blood from base, strength from 
wedding weakness, and barred out mongrel- 
ism from the world, which in the ancient days 
was deadliest sin, corrupting all. O love! 3'ou 
do mistake, saying 'I am too old.' For 
women have ever the child's habit in them. 
They love to be held in arms, love to look up 
to loving e^^es, love to be commanded, and 
obe}^ strong sovereignty. The husband is 
head — head of the house. He sits in wide 
authorit}^, and from his wisdom flow counsel, 
command, which all the house, wife, children, 
and servants, bend to, obedient. How can a 
stripling fill such seat ? How sit such dig- 
nity on a beardless face? How, save from 



gS Mamelons. 

seasoned strength, such safety come to all ? 

full grown man 1 be oak to me, and let me 
twine my weakness round thy strength, that 

1 may find safe lodgment, nor be shaken in 
ni}^ roots when storms blow strong. Too old ! 
I would thy head were sown with the white 
rime of added years. So should I love thee 
more!" 

Ah me, such pleading from love's mouth, 
such sweet entreaty from love's heart man 
never heard before, in these raw days, when 
callow 3^outh is fondled by weak women, and 
boys with starting beards push wisdom, gray 
and grave, from council chairs. 

'' Atla, it cannot be. I will admit that 3'ou 
say, sooth, my 3^ears do not forbid. Bo3''S are 
rash, hot-headed, quick of tongue, ill-man- 
nered, lacking patience, just sense, and slow- 
mannered gentleness which comes with added 
years, and that deep knowledge which slows 
blood and gentles speech, and I do see that 
you fit well to these, and would be happier 
with a man thus charactered. But, letting 
that go by — and all my heart is grateful that 



Loye's Victory. 99 

it may — still marriage may not be between ns, 
for thou art rich and I am poor, and so it 
should not be. For husband should own 
house ; the wife make home. What say you, 
am I right or wrong ?" 

To which the girl made answer : '' Thou 
art an old-time man, John Norton, and this 
judgment fits the ancient wisdom. For in the 
beginning so it was. The male built nest, the 
female feathered it with song. So each had 
part in common ministry. The man was 
greater, richer, than the woman, and w^ith 
earthly substance did endow. And she in turn 
gave sweet companionship, and sang loneli- 
ness from his life with mother songs and chil- 
dren's prattle. Thus in the beginning. Yea, 
thou art right, as thou art always right. For, 
being sound in heart and head, thou canst not 
err. Thy judgment goes straight to the cen- 
tre of the truth as goes thy bullet. But ari 
men lived and died change came to the first 
order. For men without male issue died and 
left great dower to girls. Women, by no fault 
of theirs, nor lack of modesty, grew rich by 



I GO Manicloi 



IS. 



gifts of death, which are the gifts of fate. And 
changing circumstance changed all, making 
the old law void. The gods pondered, and a 
new order rose. By chance, at first, then by 
ordainment, royalt}^ left male and followed fe- 
male blood, because their blood was truer to 
itself, less vagrant, purer, better kept. And 
women of red blood and pure, clothed in ro}^- 
alty from shame, made alliances with men 
whom their souls loved, and gave rank, vrealth, 
and their sweet selves in lavishness of loving, 
which gives all and keeps nothing back. Such 
w^as the habit of my race and line from age to 
age, even as I read you from the pictured scroll, 
rolled in foil of gold, that only I, of all the 
world, can read ; and if I die, leaving no child, 
the golden secret goes with me tD tlie gods, 
and all the ancient lore is lost to men forever. 
This to assist your judgment and make the 
scales hang level from 3^our hand for just de- 
cision. Am I to blame because I stand as heir 
to ancient blood and wealth ? Shall these wide 
acres, gold in yonder house, gems in casket, 
and diamonds worn for ten thousand years by 



Lovers Victoiy. ici 

women of my race, queens of the olden time, 
when in their hands they lifted world-wide 
sceptres, divide thee and me ? Has love no 
weight in the just scales you, by the working 
of some old fate, I know not what, hold over 
me and my soul's wish to-da}^ ? Be just to 
your own soul, be just to mine, and fling these 
doubts aside as settled forever by the mighty 
Power that works in darkness, and through 
darkness, to the light, shaping our fates and 
ordering life and deach, joy and grief, beyond 
our power to fix or change. Blovv'U by two 
winds, whose coming and going we list not, 
we, two, meet here. Strong art thou and weak 
am I, but shall thy strength repel my weak- 
ness ? Rich, without fault, I am. I\Iy blood 
is older than these hills, purer than yonder 
water, and wilt thou make an accident, light 
as a feather in just balances, outweigh a f^ct 
sweet as heaven, heavy as fate ? The queens 
of old, whose blood is one with mine, who 
spake the self-same tongue and loved the self- 
same way, chose men to be their kings ; so I, 
by the same law, choose thee. Be thou my 



T02 Mamelons. 

king. Rule me in love. By tlie old right and 
rule of all my race, I place th}^ hand upon my 
head, and so pass under yoke. I am thy sub- 
ject, and all my days shall be a sweet subjec- 
tion. Do with me as thou wilt. I make no 
terms. My feet shall walk with thine to the 
dark edge of death. Farther I know not. This 
life we may make sure. The next is or is not 
ours to order. No man may say. Lord of my 
earthly life, take me, take me to thy arms, that 
I, last of an old race, last of its blood, left sole 
in all the world, without father, mother, friend, 
may feel I am beloved b}^ him I worship, and 
drink one glad, sweet cup before I go to touch 
the bitter edge ofdubious chance at Mamelons." 
Then love prevailed. Doubt went from out 
his soul. His nature, unrestrained, leaped up 
in a red rush of joy to eyes and face. He 
lifted hands and opened arms to her. To 
them she swept, as bird into safe thicket, 
chased by hawk, with a glad cry. Panting 
she lay upon his bosom, trembling through all 
her frame, placed mouth to his and lost all 
sense but feeling. Then, with a gasp, drew 



Lovers Victory, 103 

back and lifted dewy eyes to his, as fed child 
lifts hers to nursing mother's face, or saint her 
worshiping gaze to God. 

But the gods of her old race^ standing beyond 
sunset^ lifted Jiigh^ saw^ farther oji^ the sandy 
slope of Ma7nelo7is^ and^ while she lay in heaven 
on her lover'^s breast^ they bent low their heads 
and wept. 

Spring multiplied its days and growths. 
Night followed night as star follows star in 
their far circuits, wheeling forever on. Each 
morn brought sweet surprise to each. For 
like the growths of nature so grew their love 
fuller with bloom each morn ; with fragrance 
fuller each dew}^ night. Her nature, under 
love's warmth, grew richer, seeding at its core 
for sweeter, larger life. His borrowed tone 
and color from her own, and fragrance. So, 
in the happy days of the long spring, as earth 
grew warmer, sweeter with the days, the two 
grew, with common growth and closer, until 
they stood in primal unity, no longer twain, 
but one. 



I04 Mamelons. 

One day she came to liim, and put lier liand 
in his and said : 

^' Dear love, there is an old rite by which my 
people married. It bindeth to the grave ; no 
farther. For there the old faith stopped, not 
knowing what life might be beyond, or by 
wdiom ordered. Thine goetli on through death 
as light through darkness, and holds the hope 
that earthly union lasts forever. It may be so. 
Perhaps the Galilean knew better than the 
gods what is within the veil, for so the symbol 
is. It is a winning faith. Aly heart accepts 
it as a happy chance; and, did it not, it would 
not matter. Thy faith is mine, and thine shall 
be my God. Perchance the ancient deities and 
your modern One are but the same, with differ- 
ent names. We worshiped ours with fruits 
and flowers and incense; with dancing feet, 
glad songs, and altars garlanded witli fiovv-ers; 
moistened with wine ; you, yours with doleful 
music, bare rites, the beggary of petition and 
cold reasoning. Our fashion was the better, 
for it kept the happy habits up of children, 
gladl}^ grateful for father gifts, and so pro- 



f 



Lovers Victory. 105 

longed tlie joyous childhood of the world. 
But in this thy faith is better — it hangs a star 
above the tide of death for love to steer by. 
My heart accepts the sign. Thy faith is mine. 
We will go down to Aiamelons, and there be 
married by the holy man who Vv-ears upon his 
breast the sign you trust to." 

" Nay, nay ; it shall not be," exclaimed the 
trapper. '' Atla, thou shalt not go to I\Iame- 
lons. There waits the doom for the mixed 
blood. There died thy father, and all its sands 
are full of moldering men. We will be mar- 
ried here by the old custom of thy people, and 
God, who looketh at the heart and kncYreth all, 
will bless us." 

" Dear love," returned the girl, '' thy word is 
law to me. I have no other. It shall be as 
thou wilt. But listen to my foll}^ or ni}^ wis- 
dom, I know not which it is : I fear not Alame- 
lons. There is no coward blood in me. The 
women of our race face fate with open e3xs. 
So it has been from the beginning. Death 
sees no pallor in our cheeks. To love we say 
farewell, then graveward go with stead}^ steps. 



io6 Mamelons. 

*■ 
The women of my house — a lengthy line, 

stretching downward from the past be3^ond an- 
nals — whose blood flows red in me, lived queens, 
and, dying, died as the}^ lived. I would die 
so ; lest, if thy faith is true, they would not 
own me kin nor give me place among them 
when I came, if I feared fate or death. Besides, 
the doom may not hold good toward me. I 
know my uncle saw the sight ; but he was only 
Tortoise, a branch blown far from the old tree 
and lost a thousand years amid strange peo- 
ples, and his sight, therefore, could not be sure. 
Moreover, love, if the curse holds, and I am 
under doom, how may I escape ? For fate is 
fate, and he who runs, runs quickest into it. 
So let us go, I pray, to Mamelons, and there 
be married by the holy man, the symboP- on 
whose breast was known to our old race and 
carved on altars ten thousand years before the 



'^'^ The cross as a symbol is traceable through all the old 
races, even the remotest in point of time. It was originally 
a symbol of plent\- and joy, and so stood emblematic of hap- 
piness for tens of thousands of years. The Romans con- 
nected it with their criminal law, as we have the gallows, 
and so it became a symbol of shame and sorrow. 



Lovers Victory, 107 

simple Jew was born at Bethlehem. So shall 
the symbol of the old faith and the new be for 
the first time kissed by two who represent the 
sunrise and the sunset of the world ; and the 
god of morning and of evening be proved to be 
the same, though worshiped under different 
names." 

He yielded, and the two made ready to set 
face toward Mamelons. 

There was, serving in her house, an old red 
servitor, who had bsen chief, in other days, of 
Mistassinni.^^ His dwindled tribe lives still 

2'^ This lake lies to the northwest of Lake St. John some 300 
miles, and within some 200 miles of James' Ba3\ It was first 
discovered by white men in the person of Fere Abanel,in 1661, 
a Jesuit missionary, en route to Hudson's Bay. This is the 
lake about which so much has been said in Canada and the 
vStates, and so much printed. In fact, very little is accu- 
rately known of it, unless we assume that thelatesur\^eyby 
Mr. Low is to be regarded as a settlement of the matter — 
which few, if any, acquainted with the Mistassinni ques- 
tion would do. Having- examined all the data bearing on 
the subject, I can but conclude that the bit of water 
which ]\Ir. Low said he surveyed was only a small arm or 
branch of the lake reaching south from it, and that the 
Great Mistassinni itself was never seen by ]\Ir. Low, much 
less surveyed. Unless we concluded v/ith an ancient C3mic 
that "All men are liars," then there surely is a vast body 
of water known to the natives as Big Mistassinni, l3^ing in 
the wilderness several hundreds of miles from Hudson's 



io3 Mamelons. 

upon the lake wliicli reaches northward beyond 
knowledge. But he, longer than her life, had 
lived in the great house, a life-long guest, but 
serving it in his wild fashion. Warring with 
Nasquapees and JMountaineers against the 
Esquimaux, he had been overcome in ambush 
and in the centre of their camp 'put to the tor- 
ture. Grimly he stood the test of fire, not 
making moan as their knives seamed him and 
the heated spear points seared. ]\Iaddened, 
one pried his jaws apart with edge of 
hatchet, and tore his tongue out, saying, in 
devilish jest, '' If you will not talk, 3^ou have 
no need of this," and ate it before his eyes. 
Then the chief, with twice a hundred braves, 
burst in upon them, and whirled the hellish 
brood, in roaring battle, out of the world. The 
trapper, plunging through whirring hatchets 
and red sj^ear points, sent the cursed fagots 
flying that blazed upward to his bloody mouth 

Bay, yet to be visited and surve3'ed by white men. IMista, 
in Indian dialect, means great, andsinni means a stone or 
rock. And hence Mistassinni means the "Lake of Great 
Stones or Rocks." The Assinniboine, or Rocky River, In- 
dians of the West were evidently of the same blood and lan- 
guajre orisfinallv with these red man of the northern wilds. 



Love\s Victory, 109 

and so saved him to the world. Crippled be- 
yond hope of fighting more, he left his tribe, 
and, toiling slowly through the woods, came to 
the chief in the great house and said, in the 
quick language of silent signs : ''I am no 
longer chief — I cannot fight. Let me stay here 
until I die." 'Thus came he, and so stayed, 
keeping, through many years, the larder full 
of game and fish. This wrinkled, withered 
man went with them, paddling his birch slowly 
on, deep ladened with needed stuffs and pre- 
cious things for dress and ornament at the mar- 
riage. For she said: ^' I will put on the 
raiment of my race when my foremothers 
reigned o'er half the world, and their banners, 
woven of cloth of gold, dark, with an em- 
erald island at the centre, waved over ships 
which bore the trident at their bows, their sail- 
ors anchored under Mamelons a thousand and 
a thousand years before Spain sprang a mush- 
room from the old Iberian mold. I will stand or 
fall forever, Queen at Mamelons." So said she, 
and so meant. For all her blood thrilled with 
the haughty courage of that past, when fate 



no Mam e ions. 

was faced with open, steady eyes, and the god 
Death, that moderns tremble at, was met by 
men who gazed into his gloomy orbs with 
haughty stare as he came blackening on. So 
silently the silent man went on in his light 
bark, loaded with robes, heavy with flowered 
gold, woven of old in looms whose soft move- 
ments, going deftly to and fro, sound no more, 
leaving no ripple as it went, steered by his 
withered hands, down the black rivers of the 
north, toward feast or funeral under Mamelons. 



CHAPTER V. 

AT MAMELONS. 

SUMMER was at its hottest. The woods, 
sweltering under heavy heat, sweat 
odors from every gummy pore. Flow- 
ers, unless water-rooted, withered on their 
stalks. The lumbering moose came to the 
streams and stayed. The hot hills drove him 
down. The feathered mothers of the streams 
led down their downy progeny to wider waters. 
The days were hot as ovens and the nights 
dewless. The soft sky hardened and shone 
brazen from pole to pole. The poplar leaves 
shrank from their trembling twigs and the 
birches shriveled in the heat. But on the 
rivers the air was moist and cool, lily-sweetened, 
and above their heads, at night, the yellow 
stars swung in their courses like golden globes, 
large, soft, and round. So the two boats went 
on through lovely lakes, floating slowly down 

III 



112 Mamelons. 

til 2 flowing rivers without hap or hazard, till 
they came to the last portage, beyond which 
flowed the Stygian'"^ river, whose gloomy tide 
flows out of death into bright life at Mamelons. 
They took the shortest trail. Straight up it 
ran over the mighty ridge which slopes down- 
ward, on the far side, eastward to that strange 
bay men call Eternit3^ It was an old trail 
only ran by runners who ran for life and death 
when war blazed suddenly and tribes were 
summoned in hot haste to rally. But she was 
happy hearted, and, half jesting, half in earn- 
est, said : '' Take the short trail. My heart is 
like a bird flying long kept from home. Let 
me go straight," So on the trail the two men 
toiled all day, while she played with the sands 
upon the shore and crowned herself with 
lilies, saying : " The queens of my old line 
loved lilies. I will have lily at my throat 
when I am wed." 

''* The waters of the Saguenay are unlike those of any 
other river known. They are a purple-brown, and, looked 
at en masse, are, to the e^ye, almost black. This peculiar 
color gives it a most gloomy and grewsome look, andser\^es 
to vastly deepen the profound impression its other peculiar 
characteristics make upon the mind. 



A I Ma melons, 113 

Thus, when night came, the boats and all 
their laden, were on the other side, and they 
were on the ridge, which sloped either way, 
the sunset at their backs, the glooni}^ goi'ge 
ahead. Then, pausing on the crest, swept to 
its rocks b}^ rasping winds, the sunset at her 
back, the gloom before, she said : '' Here we 
will bivouac. The sky is dewless, and the air 
is cool. The trail from this runs easy down. 
I would start with sunrise on my face toward 
Mamelons." 

So was it done, and they made camp beneath 
the trees, a short walk from the ridge, where 
the great spruce stood thickly, and a spring 
boiled upward through the gravel, cold as ice. 
The evening passed like a sweet song- 
through dewy air. She was so full of health, 
so richly gifted, so happy in her heart, so nigh 
to wedded life with him she worshiped, that 
her soul was full of joyousness, as the lark's 
throat, soaring skyward, is of song. She chat- 
tered like a magpie in many tongues, trans- 
lating rare old bits of foreign wit and ancient 
mirth with apt and laughable grimaces. Her 



114 Mantel ons. 

face vv^as mobile, rounding with jollity or 
lengthening with woe at will. She had the 
light foot and the pliant limb, the superb pose, 
abandon, and the languishing repose of her 
old race, whose princesses, with velvet feet, 
tinkling ankles, and forms voluptuous, lithe 
as snakes, danced before kings and won king- 
doms with applause from those whom, b}^ their 
wheeling, sw^a3ang, flashing beauty, they 
made wild. She danced the dances of the 
East, vvdien dancing w^as a language and a 
worship, with pantomime so rare and eloquent 
that the pleased e^^e translated every motion, 
as the ear catches the quick speech. Then 
sang she the old songs of buried days, sad, 
wild, and sweet as love singing at death's door 
to memory and to hope ; the song of jo^^s 
departed and of joys to come. So passed the 
evening till the eastern stars, wheeling upwar-d, 
stood in the zenith. Then with lingering 
lips she kissed her lover on the mouth, and 
on her couch of fragrant boughs fell fast 
asleep, forgetful of all things but life and love ; 
murmuring softl}^ in her happy dreams, "To- 



At Ma me Ions. 115 

morrow iiight," and after a little space, again, 
^' Sweet, sweet to-morrow !" 

But all the long evening through, the old 
tongueless chief of measureless Mistassinni 
sat as an Indian sits when death is coming — 
back straightened, face motionless, and eyes 
fixed on vacancy. Not till the girl la}^ sleep- 
ing on the boughs did he stir muscle. Then 
he rose up, and with dilating nostrils tested 
the air, and his throat rattled. Then put his 
ear to earth, as man to wall, listening to the 
voices running through the framework of the 
world,^^ cast cones upon the dying brands, 
and, standing in the light made by the gummy 
rolls, said to the trapper in dumb show : " The 
dead are moving. Tlie earth cracks beneath 
the leaves. The old trail is filled with war- 
riors hurrying eastward out of death. Their 

'-^^ I have been often surprised at the many and strange 
sounds which may at times be heard by putting niy ear flat 
to the sod or to the bark of trees. Even the sides gf rocks 
are not dumb, but often resonant with noises — of running 
waters, probably — deep within. It would seem that every 
formation of matter had, in some degree, the characteris- 
tics of a whispering galler}^ and that, were our ears only 
acute enough, we might hear all sounds moving in the 
world. 



ii6 Mamelons. 

spears are slanted as when men. fly. They 
wave us downward toward the river. Call her 
you love from dreamland and let us go.'' 
To which the trapper, answering, signed : 
'' Chief, old age is on you, and the memory 
of old fights. 'Tis always so with you red 
men."^ The old fields stir you, and here upon 
this ridge we fought your fight of rescue. God ! 
what a rush we made ! The air was full of 
hatchets as of acorns under shaken oaks when 
I burst through. I kicked an old skull under 
moss as we halted here, that she might not see 
it. It lies under that yellow tuft. I have ears, 
and I tell you nothing stirs. It is your super- 
stition, chief Neither living nor dead have 
passed to-night. A man without cross knows 
better. I will wait here till dawn. She said 
' I would see sunrise in my face when I start 
for Mamelons,' and she shall. I have said." 
To this the chief, after pause, signed back : 
" I have stood the test, and from the burn- 

-^ It is said that Indians cannot sleep upon a battlefield, 
however old, because of superstitious fear. They admit 
themselves that it is not well to do it, and always, under 
one excuse or another, avoid doing so. 



At Mamelcns, 117 

ing stake went beyond flesh. I liave seen the 
dead, and know them. I say the dead have 
passed to-night. Even as she danced her 
happy dances, and yon langhed, I saw them 
crowd the ridge and come, filing downward. 
They fled with slanted spears. You know the 
sign. It was a warning, and for us and her. 
For, with the rest, heading the line, there 
walked two chiefs whose bosoms bore the Tor- 
toise sign. I knew them. They slanted spears 
at her, and waved us down ; then glided on at 
speed. And others yet I saw, not of ray race 
— a woman floating in the air, her mother, 
clothed as she shall be to-morrow, and with 
her a long line of faces, like to hers asleep, 
save eager looking, anxious ; and they, too, 
waved us downward toward the river. This is 
no riddle, trapper. It is plain. When do the 
dead move without cause ? Awake your bride 
from dreams and come down- Some fate is 
flying with flat wings this way, I know not 
what. I only know the dead have waved me 
toward water, and I go." 

So saying, he took the dark trail downward, 
and in the darkness disappeared. 



ii8 Mam elans. 

" The spell is on him," muttered the trap- 
per, as he sodded the brands, " and naught may- 
stop him. The old fool will do some stumbling 
on the trail before his moccasins touch sand." 
And saying this, he gently kissed the sleeping 
girl, and taking her small hand in his strong 
palm, he fell asleep ; sleeping upon the crumb- 
ling edge of fate and death, not knowing. Had 
he but known ! Then might wedding bells, 
not wail, have sounded over Mamelons. 

•t* "t* •!• *f* •?* •!• **^ •!» 

" Awake I awake ! my God,, the fire is on its^ 
Atla r so roared he, standing straight. 

Up sprang she, quick as a flash, and stood 
in the red light by his side, cool, collected, 
while with swift, steady hands, she clothed 
herself for flight. Then swept with haught}^ 
glance the flaming ridge and said : '^ The light 
that lights my way to IMamelons, my love, is 
hotter than sunrise ; but we may head it." 
Then, with him, turned, and fled with rapid, 
but sure, feet down the smoking trail. 

The fire was that old one which burnt itself 
into the memories of men so it became a birth- 



A/ Mauielonc. 119 

mark, and thus was handed down to genera- 
tions.^" None knew how kindled. It first 
flared westward of the shallow lake, where 
Mistassinni empties its browai waters from the 
north, and at the first flash flamed to the sky. 
It is a mystery to this day, for never did fire 
kindled in woods or grass run as it ran. It 
raced a race of death with every living thing 
ahead of it, and won against the swiftest foot 
of man or moose. The whirring partridge, 
buzzing on for life, tumbled, featherless, a 
lump of singed, palpitating flesh, into the ashes. 
The eagle, circling a mile from earth, caught 
in the rising vortex of hot air, shrunk like a 
feather touched by heat, and, lessening as he 
dropped, reached earth a cinder. The living 
were cremated as they crouched in terror or 
fled screaming. The woods were hot as hell. 
Trees, wet mosses, sodden mold, brooks, 
springs, and even rivers, disappeared. Rocks 

2^ It has been told me that many children born after the 
terrible conflagration that had swept the forest from west of 
Lake St. John to Chicontimi, and which ran a course of 
150 miles in less than seven hours, were marked, at birth, 
as with fire. 



I20 M ante Ions. 

cracked like cannon overcharged. The face of 
cliffs slid downward or fell off with crashes like 
split thunder. It was a fire as hot, as fierce, 
as those persistent flames which melt the solid 
core of the world. 

Downward they raced in equal flight. Her 
foot was as the fawn's ; his stride like that of 
moose. She bounded on. He swept along, 
o'er all. They spake no word save once. She 
slipped. He plucked her from the ground, and 
said : " Brave one, we'll win this race — speed 
on." She flashed a bright look back to him 
and flew faster. Thus, over boulders and round 
rocks, they sprang and ran. Above, the flying- 
sheets of flame ; behind, the red consuming 
line ; around them, the horrid crackling of 
shriveling leaves ; ahead, the water, nigh to 
which they were ; when, suddenly, they ran 
into blinding smoke and lost the trail, and, 
tearing onward, without sight, she fell and, 
striking a sharp rock, lay still, numbed to 
weakness. The trapper, stumbling after, fell 
downward to her side, but his strong frame 
stood the hard shock, and staggered upward. 



At Mameions. 12 1 

He felt for her, and found her limp. She knew 
his touch and murmured faintl}^, with clear 
tones : '' Dear love, stay not for me : go on and 
live. Atla knows how to die." 

He snatched her to his breast, and through 
his teeth, '' O God! have you no mercy ?^^ then 
plunged onward, running slanting upward, for 
the smoke was thick below, and he knew the 
trees grew stunted on the cliifs. He ran like 
madman. A saint running out of hell might 
not run swifter. He was in hell, the hell of 
fire ; with heaven, the heaven of cool, reviving 
water, just ahead. The strength of ten was 
in him, and it sent his body, with her body on 
his breast, onward like a ball. His hair 
crimped to the black roots of it. He felt it not. 
His skin blistered on cheek and hands. He only . 
strained her closer to his bosom and tore on. 
With garments blazing, he whirled onward up 
the slope, streamed like a burning arrow along 
the ridge wdiich edges the monstrous rock men 
call Cape Trinity, slid, tumbled, fell, down its 
smoking slope, until he came to Avhere the 
awful front drops sheer; then, heaving up his 



12 2 Mamelons. 

huge frame, still clasping her sweet weight 
within strong arms, plunged, like a burnt log 
rolling out of fire, into the dark, deep, blessed 
tide. 



Morn came, but brought no sunrise. Smoke, 
black and dense, filled the great gorge, and 
hung pulseless over the charred mountains. 
Soot scummed the water levels, and new brooks, 
flowing in new channels, tasted like lye. 
Smells of a burnt world filled the air. The 
nose shrank from breath, and breathed expect- 
ant of offense. The fire brought death to ten 
thousand living things, and filled all the waste 
with stench of shallow graves, burnt skins, and 
smoldering bones. 

The dead had saved the living, for the old 
chief lived. From the red beach he saw the 
trapper's race for life along the smoking ridge, 
and paddled quick to where he made his awful, 
headlong plunge into Eternity.^^ From the 

^^ The recess of water curving inward toward the moun- 
tains betw^een Cape Trinity and Eternit}' is called Eternit}- 
bay. 



At Maine ions. 



123 



deep depths he rose, like a dead fish to surface, 
his breath beaten out of him, but clasping still 
in tight arms the muffled form. His tongueless 
savior — so paying life with life, the old debt 
wiped out at last — towed him to shore and on 
the beach revived him with rude skill persist- 
ent. He came to sense with violence, torn 
convulsively. His soul woke facing back- 
ward, living past life again. To feet he 
sprang at his first breath, and yelled : 
^^ Awake ! awake ! my God^ the fire is on us^ 
Atla P^ then plucked her from the sand where 
she lay, weak, as a wilted flower, and started 
with a bound to fly. The touch of her bent 
form, drooping in his arms, recalled his soul 
to sense, and he knew all, and reeled with the 
woe of it. Down at the water's edge he sank, 
cast covering cloth from head and hands, 
bathed her dark face, and murmured loving 
words to her still soul. 

Through realms and spaces of deep trance 
her spirit, lingering in dim void 'twixt life and 
death, heard love's call, and struggled back 
tow^ard the shore of life and sense. From pulse- 



124 Mamelons. 

less breast her soul clomb up, pushed the 
fringed lids apart, and gazed, through wide 
eyes of sweet surprise, upon his worshiped 
face; then sank, leaving a smile upon her lips, 
within the safe inclosure of deep sleep. All 
day she slept within his arms. All night she 
slumbered on. Wisely he waited, saying: 
'' Sleep to the overtaxed means life. It is the 
only medicine, and sure. In sleep the wearied 
find new selves." 

But when the second morning after starless 
night came to the world, she felt the waking 
gray of it upon her lids, and, stirring in his 
arms, like wounded bird in nest, moved mouth 
and opened eyes, and gazed slowly round, as 
seeking knowledge of place and time and cir- 
cumstance. Then memory came, and she re- 
membered all, and softly said, " Art thou 
alive, dear love ? I have been with the dead. 
The dead were ver}^ kind, but oh, I missed you 
so," and with soft hand she stroked his face 
caressingly. The old chief mutely stood, 
watching, with gloomy eyes, the sad sight. 
He read the motion of her lips, and in his 



At Mamelons. 125 

tongueless tliroat there grew a moan, and his 
dry lids wet themselves with tears. She noticed 
him and said : '' You, too, alive, old servitor! 
The gods are strict, but merciful. Two of the 
three remain. The one alone must go. So is 
it well." Then to her worshiped one : "Dear 
love, this is a gloomy place. Let us go on. 
The smoke hides the bright world. I long for 
light. The fate is not yet sure. The blood of 
our old race holds tightly to last chance. We 
face it out with death to the last throb. Then 
yield, not sooner. Who knows ? I may find 
sunrise yet at Mamelons.'' 

So was it done. 

They placed her on soft skins within the 
boat facing him who steered, for she said : 
" Dear love, the dead see not the living. If I 
go I may not see you evermore. So let me 
look on your dear face while yet I may. To- 
day is mine. To-morrow — I know not who 
may own to-morrow." 

Thus, he at stern and she at stem, softly 
placed on the piled skins, her dark e3^es on 
his face, they glided out of the deep bay, 



126 Mamelons, - 

round the gray base of the dread cape that 
stands eternal, and floated downward with the 
black ebb toward the sea. Past islands and 
through channels intricate, they went in silence, 
until they came to where the Marguerite, with 
tuneful mouth, runs singing over shining sands, 
pouring out into dark Saguenay, as life pours 
into death ; then breathed they freer airs, and 
the freshness of untainted winds fell sweetly 
down upon them from overhanging hills, and 
thus she spake : 

*' Dear love, I know not what may be. We 
mortals are not sure of anything. The end 
of sense is that of knowledge. We know we 
live forever. For so our pride compels, and 
some have seen the dead moving. But under 
what conditions we do live beyond, we know 
not. Hence hate I death. It is an interruption 
and a stoppage of plans and joys which work 
and flow in sequence ; severs us from loved 
connections ; for the certain gives us the uncer- 
tain, and in place of solid substantial facts forces 
us to build our future lives on the unfixed 
and changeful foundations of hopes and 



At Mamelons, 127 

dreams. It is not moral state that puzzles. 
We of the old race never worried over that. 
For we knew if we were good enough to live 
here, and once, then were we good enough to live 
elsewhere and forever ; but it was the nature 
of existence, its environment, and the connec- 
tions growing out of these, that filled the race 
whose child I am with dread and dole. For 
all the women of my race loved with great 
loves— the loves of lovers who sublimated 
life in loving, and knew no higher and no 
holier, nor cared to know. We cast all on 
that one chance ; winning all in winning, and 
losing all if we lost. With me it is the same. 
I love you with a love that maketh life. I am 
a slave to it. It is my strength or weakness, 
as has been with the women of my blood from 
the beginning. I have no other creed, nor 
faith nor hope. To-day I see thee, and I have. 
To-morrow whom shall I see ? The dead ? I 
care not for the dead. There is not one among 
them I may love, for loving thee has cut me 
off from loving other one forever ; unless the 
alchemy of death works back the creative pro- 



128 Mamelons, 

cess, undoing all of blood and nature, and 
sends us into nothingness, then brings us 
forth by new processes foreign to what we 
were, and wholly different from our old selves, 
which is a consummation horrible to think 
of." 

" Nay, nay," exclaimed the trapper. " Such 
cannot be. Our loves, if the}^ be large and 
whole, grow with us, and with our lives live 
on forever." 

" It may be so, dear love," replied the girl. 
" Love's prophecy should be true as sweet, or 
else your sacred books are vain. For in them 
it is written, ^ Love is of God.' But oh, how 
shall I find thee in that other world ? * For 
wide and dim must stretch its spaces, and vast 
must be its intervals. This earth is small. 
We who live in it few. Within the circle of 
three generations all living stand. But the 
dead are many. The sands of Mamelons are 
not so numberless. They totalize the ages ; 
the land^they dwell in beyond mortal com- 
pass. Who may be sure of meeting any one 
in such a realm ? At what point on its bound- 



At Mamelons. 129 

aries shall I wait and watch ? How signal 
thee, by hand or voice, when out of earth, like 
feather, blown, by that strange movement men 
call death, into the endless distances, thou 
comest suddenly. 

"Alas ! alas ! I know not if beyond this day, 
I, going out of this -dear sunlight, may ever 
and forever look upon thy face again !'^ 

" Atla," returned the trapper, " I know not 
what may be. But this I know and swear, 
that if a trail pushed, seeking, through a thou- 
sand or ten thousand years, may bring me to 
thy side, we two shall meet in heaven." 

" Oh, love, say those sweet words again," 
she cried. " Say more than them. Crowd 
into this one day, that I am sure of, the vows 
and loves of half a life, that I may go, if go I 
must, out of thy sight from Mamelons, heart- 
ful, upheld by an immortal hope. And here 
I pledge thee, by the Sacred Fire that burns for- 
ever, that if power bestowed by nature, or art- 
fully acquired \iy patience working through 
ten thousand years, may find thee after death, 
then sometime will I find my heaven in thy 



130 Mamelons. 

arms, not found till then. So, now, in lioly 
covenant we will rest until we come to Mame- 
lons, and ever after. I feel the breeze of wider 
water on ni}^ cheek, and breathe the salted air. 
I shall know soon if ever sunrise shine for me 
at Mamelons." 

So went they down in silence with the tide 
that whirled itself in eddies toward the sea ; 
past L'Anse a I'Eau, wdiere now the salmon 
swim and spawn against their will,-^ past the 
sharp point of rounded rocks, where sportively 
the white whales^^ roll, and, steering straight 
across the harbor's mouth, where her Basque 
fathers anchored ships before the years of 
men,^^ ran boat ashore where the great ledge 

"^^ At ly'Anse a I'Eau, where the Saguenay steamers land 
passengers for Tadousac, the tourist will find a fine collec- 
tion of large salmon at the upper end of the little bay or re- 
cess, for here is one of the salmon hatching stations under 
government patronage. 

^^ The white whales, commonly called porpoises, are very 
plentiful at the mouth of the Saguenay, and to a stranger 
present a very novel and entertaining spectacle tumbling 
in the black water. The}^ are hunted by the natives for 
both their skins and oil. 

^^ Personally, I hold to the opinion that the eastern hemi- 
sphere never lost its knowledge of the western, but that, 
from immemorial times, the Basques and their Iberian an- 



At Manieloiis. 131 

runs, sloping down from upper sand to water, 
and shining beach and gray rock meet. 

But as they crossed the harbor's mouth, 
sailing straight on abreast of Mamelons, its 
bright sands blackened and a shadow dark- 
ened on its front, and, as they bore her 
tenderly to the terrace, where stood tent and 
priest, a tremor shook the quivering earth, 
and through the darkening air a wave of 
thunder rolled. 

" Dear love," she said, '' it may not be. The 
fate still holds. The doom works out its dole. 
I may not be thy wife this side "grave. What 
rights I have beyond I shall know soon. For 
soon the sight ^^ will come to me, and what is 
hidden nowwill stand out plain." Then, lying 
on the skins, she gazed at Mamelons, looming 

cestors visited at regular interv^als the St. Lawrence, both 
gulf and river. Of course, the grounds on which I base 
such an opinion cannot be presented in this note. 

3" It is held by some that certain families have the power 
of " second sight/' or to look into the future, come to them 
just before death. I have known cases where such power, 
apparently, did come to the dying. The Basque people 
held strongly to the belief that all of their kingly line 
were seers or prophets, and that, especially before d3^ing, 
each had a full , clear view of the future. 



132 Mamelons, 

vast and black in shadow, and, closing eyes, 
she prayed unto the gods, the earthborn, old- 
time fathers of her race. 

But he could not have it so, and when 
prayer was ended said : " Atla, we have come 
far for marriage rite, and married we will be. 
Thou art mistaken. I have seen shadow settle 
and heard thunder roll before. In eye nor 
cheek are death's pale signals set. The holy 
man is here. Here ring and seal. Forget the 
doom, and let the words be read that bindeth 
to the grave." 

To this she answering said : *' Dear love, 
thou art in error, but thy word is law. My 
stay is brief When yonder shadow passes I 
shall pass. There sleeps my father, and with 
him I must sleep. The earth is conscious. 
I am of those who were, earthborn, and so 
she feels our coming and our going as mother 
feels life and death of child. The sun is on 
the western hills. At sunset I shall die. But 
if it may stay up thy soul through the sad 
years, bid the good man go on." 

Then took the priest his book, and, in the 



At Mamelons. 133 

language of the Latins, so old to us, so new 
beside her tongue, whose literature was dead 
a thousand years before' Rome was, began to 
bind, by the manufactured custom of modern 
meni whose binding is of law and not of love, 
and hence a mockery. But ere he came to that 
sweet fragment of love's law and faith, stolen 
from the past, the giving and receiving of a 
ring, symbol of eternity, she suddenly lifted 
hand, and said : 

" Have done ! Have done ! No need of mar- 
riage now. No need of rite, nor prayer, nor 
endless ring, nor seal of sacred sign. I see 
what is to be. The veil is lifted and I see 
beyond. I se2 the millions of my race lift 
over Mamelons. They come as come the seas 
toward shore, rolling in countless billows from 
central ocean. The old Iberian race, millions 
on millions, landscapes of moving forms, 
aligned with the horizon, come, marching on. 
Among them, lifted high, the gods. On 
thrones a thousand queens sit regnant, rai- 
mented like me. Their voice is as the sound 
of many waters. 



134 Mamelons, 

" Last, best, and Highest over all, we place 
tliee. 

" The gods say so ? So be it, then. Mother, 
I have kept charge. My love has won him. 
The old race stops, but by no fault of mine. My 
people, this man is lord and king to me. See 
that ye bring him to my throne when he 
comes seeking to the West. Dear love, you 
will excuse me now. I must pass on ; but 
passing on I leave my soul with thee. Make 
grave for me on Mamelons. Put lily at my 
throat, green boughs on breast, bright sand 
on boughs. Watch with me there one night. 
I will be there with thee. So keep with Atla 
holy tryst one night and only one — then go 
thy way. We two will have sweet meeting 
after many days." And saying this she put 
soft hand in his and died. 

Her lover, kneeling by her couch, put face 
to her cold cheek, nor stirred. The holy man 
said softly holy prayer ; while the old tongue- 
less chief of Mistassinni wrapped head in 
blanket, and through the long night sat as one 
dead. 



At M ante Ions, 135 

Next day tlie silent man made silent grave 
on Mamelons. At sunset they brought lier 
to it, raimented like a queen, and laid her 
body in bright sand ; put lily at her throat, 
green boughs on peaceful breast, and slowly 
sifted clean sand over all. 

That night a lonely man sat by a lonely 
grave, through the long watches keeping holy 
tryst. But when the sun came up, rising out 
of mists which whitened over Anticosti, he rose, 
and, standing, with bared head, he said : 

'' Atla,^^ we two will have sweet meeting 

5^ I named ray heroine Atla, because I hold that the 
Basques not only are descendants of the old Iberians, but 
that the Iberians were a cDlony from Atlantis. I accept 
fully Ignatius Donelly's conclusions as to the actual old- 
time existence of a great island continent in the Atlantic 
Ocean, and believe that in it the human race began and de- 
veloped a civilization inconceivably perfect and splendid, of 
which the Egyptian, Peruvian, Iberian, and Mexican were 
only colonial repetitions. Atla is, therefore, the proper 
name for the last of the old Basque-Iberian blood to have, 
as it is the root of Atlantis (Atla-ntis), the original mother- 
land of all. I have never met Mr. Donell}^ and may never 
meet him, and hence I make this opportunity to express 
the obligation I am under to him for entertainment and 
profit. The patience of the scholarship that could accumu- 
late the material for a book like his " Atlantis " is w^orthy 
ofa wider and more grateful acknowldgement than this 



*f. -i^^tf^y 






136 Mam e Ions. 

after many days." Then lie went his 
way. 

And there, on that high crest, whose sands 
first saw the sunrise of the world, when sang 
the stars of morning, beyond doom and fate, at 
last, the child of the old race, which lived in 
the beginning, sweetly sleeps at Mamelons. 

superficial age of ours is able to give, for it cannot appre- 
ciate it. No man with any pretensions of scholarly attain- 
ments can afford to let " Atlantis " go unread. 



